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# LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, i 



tf'W |w¥>' I" t 

^UNITED STATES OP AMERICA J [ 



THE CULTURE 



OF THE 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 



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p3 



THE CULTURE 



OF THE 



OBSERVING FACULTIES 



IN THE 



FAMILY AND THE SCHOOL: 

OR, 

THINGS ABOUT HOME, 

AND 

Inm tn makB tjim Sttstrtittto tn tlir "^nuHg. 

/ 



'J^•>^ BY WARREN BURTON, 

-''VT'^l/ AUTHOR OF "THE DISTRICT 6CHOOL AS IT WAS," AND 

S '^ " HELPS TO EDUCATION," ETC. 



NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

1865. 



5«^' ^^y.2y./j^^^ 



Ij K/60; 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight 
hundred and sixty-five, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

In tlie Clerk's OflSce of the District Court of the Southern District of 

New York. 



^7^ 



r 



A FEW WOEDS 

TO PARENTS, TO OLDER BROTHERS AND SIS- 
TERS, AND TO SCHOOL-TEACHERS. 



Friends, — If you would go hand in hand with 
genial Nature^ and have children learn easily and 
Tnuch from thhigs all around them as instructive 
as books ; if you would enjoy sensible^ animated^ 
and charming talks with quick-witted and blithe 
companions / if you would have the dear learn- 
ers gratZful long afterward for a cidture pecidiar- 
ly qualifying them for life's practical affairs ; 
if withal^ you would learn much yourselves lohile 
teaching others^ please put in practice the sugges- 
tions of this little book^ which is noio hopefully 
offered to your service by the 

AUTHOK. 



SUGGESTIONS 



ON 



THE CULTURE OF THE OBSERVING 
FACULTIES. 



THE BEGINNING. 



The beginning. 



The intellectual development of the human 
being begins as soon as he can open his eyes 
and put forth his hands — as soon as his senses 
come in contact with the material world. 
From this time onward he is continually gain- 
ing knowledge, and preparing for his future of 
usefulness and enjoyment. It is said that all 
the simple elements of knowledge and the best 
part of man's education are obtained before he 
is seven years of age. These foundations are 
mainly laid at home. The work is, or should 
be, under the supervision of the parents. This 
education, however, goes on, whether they at- 



10 THE CULTURE OF THE 

The beginning. 

tend to it or not. Indeed, the child will be 
continually educating himself. It may be tru- 
ly said that the first and the most important 
part of man's intellectual culture, as things have 
been, is self-culture. Now this fostering from 
kindly nature, this forth - putting and forth- 
grasping of the infant faculties, may be greatly 
assisted by the parents and other older mem- 
bers of the family, if they did but think of it, 
and would but give themselves to it. Help 
in this primary home institution is as valuable 
as in the public seminaries to which the mind 
is afterward introduced. In the majority of 
homes, however, this assistance is casually and 
poorly rendered. It is because parents have 
the notion that they have nothing to do with 
intellectual development. This, they suppose, 
belongs only to the school. If a child asks a 
question about any thing new to his curiosity, 
he may be kindly answered. If he persistent- 
ly puts many questions, he is patiently borne 
with, or perhaps hastily hushed or snapped off. 
The parents have not the least suspicion that, 
in replying to such questions, they are really 
exercising tutorships and professorships as im- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 11 

Knowledge without books, 

portant, to say the least, as any in college. In- 
deed, it may be affirmed with absolute truth, 
that, as schools have generally been conduct- 
ed, especially for little children, the education 
mostly stops at the school threshold ; at least 
it begins to be exceedingly hindered, as will 
plainly appear. 

KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT BOOKS. 

J ust watch a babe, and see what Nature, or 
rather his own divinely devised constitution, 
prompts him to do, and let us gather useful 
hints from the observation. As soon as there 
is any visual discernment, there is a separation 
of one thing from another, and the reception of 
distinct ideas. The little one leaves the mater- 
nal lap — for what ? to work, and to get knowl- 
edge to prepare him for more and more work. 
He creeps about the room, not only for the 
pleasure of muscular action, but to seek for new 
objects to his curiosity ; hunting for prey, if 
we may so speak, as food to his awakened and 
craving perceptions. Every thing he gets hold 
of is a subject of interest — a fund of entertain- 
ment; and, though his mother perhaps thinks 



12 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Knowledge without books. 

not of it, it is a source of most valuable instruc- 
tion. We can not just yet say of him that "he 
who runs may read," but we may say that he 
who creeps can — can read the great book of 
perceptible and practical knowledge, which is 
open boundlessly before him, just as fast and 
far as he can get at it. Toeing and kneeing it 
along, he lays hold of every thing within the 
touch and the crook of his fingers. "Why ? he 
wants knowledge, and he will have it. First, 
the thing — the individual — it is separate from 
some other thing he perceives, and he wants to 
know about it as another and distinct object. 
The several perceptive powers then come into 
action : finding out the various qualities — fig- 
ure, color, size, weight — as they are peculiar to 
each individual thing. Thus the child ranges 
through the room ; and when, in due time he 
mounts to the top of his feet, he runs about the 
house, and soon out of doors, and then round 
about the premises, all the time after knowl- 
edge — knowledge of objects, qualities, opera- 
tions, uses. Before the little looker and hunter 
is four years old, he is acquainted with hund- 
reds of things — perhaps we might say thou- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 13 

Industrial efforts. 

sands. He knows nothing about the book, it 
may be, but is he deficient in language ? By 
no means; objects are distinguished by names ; 
qualities by appropriate terms. What riches 
of language are his, even now, though he may 
never have been at school, and can not read a 
word! All this time he has been in training 
for the duties and enjoyments of maturer life. 
He has been studying the Creator's perfect 
works, and unconsciously finding the steps 
which lead up to the Most Wise and Most Lov- 
ing. He has been acquainting himself with 
the things also made by human hands, and ex- 
amining the materials of which they are com- 
posed. This is in preparation for the time 
when he himself will make similar things, and 
will need accurate knowledge of fabrics and 
materials as to qualities and fitness for specific 
purposes. 

INDUSTRIAL EFFORTS. 

Nay, farther, our little beginner at life is 
something more than a learner — he is a maker. 
He is at his mechanics, too. See him putting 
this thing with that in rude efforts at construe- 



14 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Industrial efforts. 

tion ! Grive him a dozen blocks, and he is in 
absolute bliss at work; building up and pull- 
ing down, and altering his wall or house, or 
whatever else he may be striviog to imitate. 
How wonderfully industrious, imitative, and 
constructive ! He wants to do every thing he 
sees others do. Give him little tools fitted to 
his little fingers, and how delighted ! How he 
skips off, mightily earnest, to his miniature bus- 
iness ! Now these applications of his strength 
and trials of his skill are instincts and impulses 
to prepare him for the labors, duties, and pleas- 
ures of life. And the parents, therefore, ought 
all the time to sympathize with him, lending 
a hand now and then to help just enough and 
no more; catching hints from instructive Na- 
ture, and carrying out her plans far beyond 
what the child's unassisted mind could think 
of in his own behalf But they generally do 
no such thing. On the contrary, they cut off 
the little learner from the very education he 
was getting, as well as he could, almost all 
alone. They practically declare, "Nature, you 
do not know as much as old usage does — 
usage begun in ignorance and continued in stu- 
pidity." 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 15 



An abiise of nature. 



AN ABUSE OF NATURE. 

But let US more particularly consider what 
is done. Oh the sad change which comes over 
this childhood's dream, or rather over this con- 
tented, sweet reality ! This is what we do — we, 
grown-up and pretendedly grown-wiser people 
— we catch up the active, looking, learning, 
working, and manufacturing happy little crea- 
ture, and clap him, together with twenties, thir- 
ties, forties, or fifties besides, into a wooden box, 
hardly, in some instances, large enough to hold 
them without jamming and hurting one against 
the other, and fasten him upon a seat, out of 
the reach of the many objects he has been in 
the midst of, and which he has been doing with 
as Nature intended. Yes, there we fasten him, 
or permit our agent, the school committee or 
the school-teacher, to do it ; and we make him 
bend his neck, and fix his eyes on a plain, dry 
surface of paper. This he must not cut, fold, 
crumble, or variously shape, in the way of cul- 
tivating his manufacturing abilities. No, he 
must look straight down upon this metamor- 
phosis of cotton. Were it but the rags out of 



16 THE CULTURE OF THE 

An abuf?e of nature. 

which it came, many-shaped, many-hued, there 
would be something to hold the eye ; but what 
does he see now ? Words, words, words ; lit- 
tle black, immovable images, which he can not 
get his fingers under. What cares he for them? 
Nature made him to care for things, and for 
words too, just so far as they stand for the 
things he has to do with, or can have any 
clear idea of He, indeed, has an appetite, if 
we may so speak, for words, so far as they con- 
vey any ideas ; but we do not consult this ap- 
petite, but give him the words all tasteless of 
meaning. When I say this, I do not mean to 
af&rm that no explanations at all are given, 
but that none scarcely are given, in a large 
majority of schools, in immediate connection 
with the things to which they belong. Before 
the child enters school, it is always first things 
with him, then words. At school, it is first 
words, and then things — that is, if the pupil 
shall happen to come across them ; otherwise 
he must go without such substantial acquaint- 
ance. Now it ought not so to be. The period 
lent by Nature to prepare for future industry 
and livelihood ought not to be so unprofitably 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 17 

Profitable schooling. 

and wretchedly spent. In all common sense 
and true philosophy, this paper-deadening, ink- 
blinding delusion should be put away. But 
what shall take its place ? Kealities, life, 
thought, action, intelligence ; just what the 
chil^ has been forced to leave at his own home. 
These might be at once brought in, and how 
easily and cheaply besides! Keally it would 
not cost, on the whole, so much as school-wea- 
riness or school-hate costs, when it breaks over 
bounds and runs wild into mischief. 

PROFITABLE SCHOOLING. 

Let our primary school-rooms, and, indeed, 
the higher school-rooms, be well provided with 
shelves and boxes. Let these be filled with all 
sorts of productions of nature and art ; speci- 
mens of all sorts of wood and metal ; all kinds 
of cloth and leather, or any other fabric — in- 
deed, with every thing which can well be 
brought into a school, and put in some proper 
receptacle. Let each one of these objects be a 
subject for examination by classes in conven- 
ient order, under the direction of the teacher. 
In this way the plan begun by IS'ature at home 

B 



18 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Profitable schooling. 

would be carried out, and carried out much far- 
ther than could possibly be done at home under 
ordinary circumstances, as many objects would 
be supplied by the scholars from different fam- 
ilies which could not be had excepting as each 
was found in a different home. All the percep- 
tive faculties would here find delightful occu- 
pation, and be continually gaining in strength. 
Children would hardly be tired of such obser- 
vation, due regard being given to their comfort 
and constitutional power of attention. Indeed, 
if rightly managed, they would enter heartily 
into minute examinations and comparisons of 
one thing with another, for there might be a 
healthful and spirited emulation in the exercise. 
It may be farther remarked, that the words 
designating the object in hand and its qualities 
and uses must come into the occasion. These 
the children learn just as readily as they learn 
at home the name of the lamp, and that it is 
bright and hot, or the terms belonging to any 
thing- else. Language is not lost, but rather 
richly gained, by such use of the time. Fur- 
thermore, just consider the practical utility of 
this mode of education. What a wide and mi- 



OBSEEVING FACULTIES. 19 

Profitable schooling. 

nute acquaintance is formed with things, as 
necessaries, comforts, and luxuries in living, or 
as appertaining to the various affairs of busi- 
ness! How the quality of the material and of 
the manufacture of a commodity will be com- 
pared with the quality of another of the same 
kind ; so that, by the time the child shall be 
old enough to leave school, he shall have run 
through the whole range of objects ever used 
in ordinary life, and be able to detect the mi- 
nutest differences between one and another of 
the same sort ! With such a training, it would 
be utterly impossible for manufacturer or trader 
to impose an inferior production on the pur- 
chaser. He must proportion his price to the 
quality, or keep his goods on his hands. With 
the ignorance of commodities in which people 
have been kept until grown up and obliged to 
purchase for themselves, how continually have 
they been subjected to impositions on their 
credulity, and to consequent annoyance of spir- 
it! It has really taken a lifetime to obtain 
that practical knowledge of qualities and fit- 
nesses which might be acquired by boys and 
girls before they are half through their teens. 



20 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Profitable schooling. 

were the common-sense and time-saving meth- 
od above explained adopted. How also are 
the poor now imposed upon ! They must take 
a second or third rate article at a very lit- 
tle reduction from the price of the best, to 
make a small saving. Yet, in the long run, 
theirs are the dearest purchases of all. But 
with such an education there could scarcely be 
any imposition on any body. The children of 
the poor in our common schools are equally 
learners with those of the rich. If those who 
are pinched for money must seek the cheapest 
thing, they will know exactly its comparative 
value, and will either have fair terms, or go to 
some competitor more favorable to their circum- 
stances. Then the struggle would be among 
the manufacturers to see who should excel — 
who should go ahead in improvement — as 
knowing that the purchasers have been train- 
ed from very infancy to detect imperfections. 
Then the trader could not deceive the buyer, 
if the manufacturer should succeed in deceiv- 
ing him. Indeed, retailer, jobber, wholesale 
dealer, and manufacturer must all be honest 
men, selling at prices exactly just; that is, ac- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 21 

Loss and gain. 

cording to quality, all other circumstances be- 
ing equitably considered. If every article in 
a dry -goods store, or a grocery, or any other 
furnishing establishment were thus put to the 
test of minute examination and comparison, 
the reign of that old hollow-hearted despot 
whose power is in his own pretense and in the 
ignorance of his subjects — the reign of King- 
Sham — would be ended. 

LOSS AND GAIN. 

Thus much might easily be done in our 
schools ; yes, and money enough might be 
saved by the "operation," as trading people 
have the term, to pay the whole school-tax. 
Just think of it, friends! how much the major- 
ity of people actually lose out of pocket by 
overpaying for poor commodities ! or, if price 
and quality do go honestly together, how much 
discomfort is often occasioned to the body and 
trouble to the spirit by these cheap imperfec- 
tions ! How often, too, the purse suffers in the 
long run by all the rips, breakages, and good- 
for-nothingness for which the few dollars or 
few cents saved are far from making up ! Who 



22 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Loss and gain. 

has not had occasion to feel the truth of the 
saying, "the cheapest things are the dearest?" 
Just look round your premises, and take a dis- 
tinct observation of all the various necessaries, 
comforts, luxuries, and elegances there gather- 
ed. Consider the ceaseless rush of wearables, 
eatables, drinkables, and burnables into your 
household receptacles. Then reflect that all 
this mixed and continuous avalanche of earth- 
ly matter is sweeping through your doors from 
the beginning to the end of married life, half a 
century perhaps and more, costing to moderate 
fortunes, for fifty years, fifty thousand dollars 
at least, and to others twice or four times that 
amount ; and then reflect how often through 
this long period the twain and their depend- 
ents have been mistaken, have been cheated, 
or somehow have lost in their bargainings, in 
consequence of not having their senses about 
them — at least one sense wide open and sharp 
— that is, the sight. Yes, friends, take all these 
absolute realities into a clear comprehension, 
and then tell me whether the shelves and boxes 
of specimen goods at the school-room, and the 
careful inspection and comparison of them by 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 23 

Loss and gain. 

the pupils in the course of all the long years 
passed there, are nothing but a theorist's ivhim. 
But, alas! even if you should think this com- 
modity project not a whim, but rather an all- 
important requisite, it would be quite in vain 
as schools are now arranged. Even if par- 
ents, committees, and teachers should all be 
convinced of the value of the proposition, it 
might take no short time to get it into action. 
Who does not know that public improvements, 
however well acknowledged, are often post- 
poned for years? Inconvenient and unhealthy 
school-rooms in cities, and miserable old school- 
houses in the country, prove this fact. The bet- 
ter time, however, is coming, as a few schools 
here and there in our country bear witness. 
In the mean time, good parents, what shall pre- 
vent you from going into this commodity- 
training at once in your own families ? In- 
deed, your children are at it now, all by them- 
selves — even the youngest creeper on the car- 
pet. They only want a little assistance. Their 
senses are all alive and awake ; their observ- 
ing faculties are at their appointed work. The 
difficulty is, there are so many new things all 



24 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Loss and gain. 

about in this freshly entered world, that they 
do not work long enough on one piece of mat- 
ter ; they are not thorough. Now what these 
little candidates for purchases and house-keep- 
ing want is your help and companionship in 
inspection. How much can be learned of real 
substantial knowledge even before the child 
shall arrive at the school-going age! Without 
any help at all, except his own keen senses or 
the eager perceptives behind them, he becomes 
marvelously knowing at four or five years of 
age. Now, amid all your gettings of new 
things, what a constant opportunity is there 
for him to get an understanding of them, if 
you will but stop to show him ! What ample 
time is there during the three meals a day, at 
the table, for the inspection of things in use 
upon it, and for talk about those which have 
been seen elsewhere ! Indeed, friends, you may 
take your children along through your whole 
house-world, and over and over again, search- 
ing every thing as thoroughly as air, light, and 
heat search them, by the time they shall come 
to the edge of their youthful years. Even a 
seven-year-old errand-doer would have some- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 25 

Loss and gain. 

thing like a mature judgment as to the bad, 
the better, and the best, at the store where he 
carries your cents, dimes, and quarters, to bring 
you back, as you hope, the best article to be 
had for the money. You would find, I can 
affirm without fear of contradiction, the im- 
mortal adage to be true even of a child, that 
"knowledge is power" — power over a store- 
keeper or any other money-maker. Just try 
the plan at once, my friends, and be convinced. 
You will then have something to talk about 
with your children, not so much to grumble 
about, and not so much time for grumbling. 
Finally, when you shall have thoroughly proved 
the value and the pleasure of this thing — learn- 
ing in the home seminary — then try all your 
influence for a change in the school. Both in- 
stitutions earnestly working together, be as- 
sured that all sorts of producers would have 
to go ahead toward perfection, and trade would 
be compelled to be honest. Adulteration, that 
vile deceiver, that sometimes awful poisoner, 
would be cornered, starved out, and have to 
give up. Old and mighty Sham, as was inti- 
mated before, would have to abdicate, and his 
line would perish. 



26 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Infantile activity. 

Much more is yet to be said about the inves- 
tigation of material things. I shall now take 
up the subject somewhat methodically, and in 
various relations. All, however, will have a 
bearing more or less on practical utility. 

INFANTILE ACTIVITY. 

The exercise of the observing faculties — ob- 
ject-study — begins in early infancy, prompted 
by the inborn instincts. Some hints apper- 
taining to this tenderest age may be of bene- 
fit, so they are here given intermediately as we 
pass along. 

Set it down, friends, as a fact that your chil- 
dren want things substantial and palpable to 
the senses from the time they are put on the 
floor from the mother's lap. They must have 
them at first or nothing. Let them, therefore, 
have what they want, but it must be judicious- 
ly and properly. The infant is pleased with 
that which he can grasp, and shake about, and 
put to his mouth. But do not, like some ig- 
norant parents, give him what would be hurt- 
ful — a painted toy, for instance — so that he 
shall be in danger of sucking the paint and of 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 27 

Infantile activity. 

being poisoned ; for the taste is one of the first 
avenues to infantile knowledge and enjoyment, 
and there is a sucking instinct. Put into his 
hands little hard things of different shapes, and 
made of ivory, or some other clean, firm sub- 
stance, which may be found, perhaps, at the 
toy -shop ; or things of solid wood, which you 
can carve out for yourself. When he shall 
fairly get upon the floor, there to be seated 
like a monarch on his throne, or to move about 
like a mechanic in his shop, provide him with 
little blocks, and other manageable things, to 
pile up and toss about. When he shall be old 
enough to try any thing like building with 
them, some one should show him how, and 
help his beginning. Few probably need this 
hint ; yet some are too busy with work or 
amusements, or too indolent to stoop a few 
moments to the incipient constructor, if he is 
not in the way of their feet, or makes no dis- 
turbing cries. Any thing which will not harm 
him, and which he himself can not injure, 
might be within his domain or his workshop. 
Pray use the good sense not to let him have, 
even to gain a moment's quiet, what he may 



28 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Sympathy wanted. 

tear or deface, such as the yet-unread newspa- 
per or a valuable book. He must understand 
that he can never have such things, at least 
unless there are those of the kind devoted to 
his special use alone. You will save a great 
deal of time and trouble by firmness in this 
matter. In process of the months he becomes 
a traveler on all-fours about the room ; he is 
in search of curiosities and adventures. It is 
now far better to keep entirely out of his reach 
things he must not touch, than to be ever anx- 
iously on the watch, and perpetually stopping, 
thwarting, and irritating the headlong discov- 
erer. As for things which can not be put 
aside, such as the stove or the fireplace, and 
the implements belonging to them, just let him 
understand that it is your will, which can not 
he changed^ that he must never touch them. If 
necessary, just let him get, under your careful 
watch, an uncomfortably hot, but not a burnt 
finger a few times, and he will perceive why 
he must not go too far in that direction. 

SYMPATHY WANTED. 

Enough has been said, perhaps, to indicate 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 29 

Sympathy wanted. 

how a child may be entertained and instructed 
for the first year. As the second comes on, 
he begins to run about, and to go every where, 
and get at every thing, and you are put to 
your wits to keep him within safe bounds. 
He is perpetually finding new things. His 
brain is too weak to be kept very long at one 
single object, so it is a happy provision that 
curiosity should carry him quickly from one 
thing to another. Nevertheless, let him hold 
on to what he has as long as he will ; the lon- 
ger the better ; for thus he will form the hab- 
it of concentrated attention, preparing him to 
stick to a lesson till he thoroughly learns it, or 
to any other pursuit in the future till he shall 
have accomplished it. By -and -by, when he 
shall discover some new and curious thing, he 
will run with it to you if he can, or bring you 
to it, to show you what a wonderful discovery 
he has made. He is a social being, such as he 
is to be, or ought to be in all his after life. It 
is worthy of remark, and of gratitude also to 
the good Creator, how children want the pres- 
ence, the attention, and especially the sympa- 
thy of others. Above all things, in gratifying 



30 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Individualizing. 

curiosity, and getting knowledge, and doing 
their little play -work, they crave sympathy. 
How this infantile innocence instructs far-off 
manhood and womanhood, and rebukes solita- 
ry and cold self-seeking! Your child wants 
sympathy; give it to him on the spot. He 
will be satisfied with a very little. Do not 
turn him abruptly off, unless the house should 
be on fire, or somebody is in agonizing pain, 
and must have help at once. Look as he 
holds up his new-found treasure: look! per- 
haps you will learn something yourself; for 
children often find out interesting items of 
knowledge which their parents had been utter- 
ly ignorant of before. Then dismiss the nov- 
elty-finder with a tender word and a kind look, 
and he will run away as happy as ever Agas- 
siz was after having discovered and lectured 
about some new species of fish ; for genial 
science delights to impart as well as to find. 

INDIVIDUALIZING. 

But your child has begun to talk : he calls 
things by name ; that is, if, with all patience, 
you will tell him what the names are. Now 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 31 

Individualizing. 

or soon you may help him to cultivate into 
strength and acuteness the most important per- 
ceptive faculty of his mind ; it is the individu- 
alizing faculty. The phrenologists name it "in- 
dividuality." All qualities of material things 
which fit them for special uses inhere in sepa- 
rate individual objects. Certain qualities are 
combined together, and thus form a certain spe- 
cies of things. Now, unless the sense distinct- 
ly detects and gets hold of the thing, the quali- 
ties and uses can not be apprehended. So, one 
of the very first observing powers put in ac- 
tion is that of individuality. It is not some 
new quality, but some new and distinct object 
which the child drives at and lays hold of, 
and then he looks for its properties. Some 
have this faculty constitutionally much stron- 
ger than others. Many a boy and girl, many 
a man and woman, go along the roads in a 
country place, or the streets of a city, with 
their eyes half shut, or gazing about with a 
vacant stare, or fastened straightforward upon 
nothing. Others observe every thing, and gain 
knowledge at every step and at every turn of 
the eye. Such being the constitutional differ- 



32 THE CULTURE OF THE 

The object game. 

ence in cliildren, it will be well for parents to 
attend early to this matter. Perhaps they 
themselves are deficient in this individualizing 
ability, and it is time that they should make 
up the deficiency. 

THE OBJECT GAME. 

As a mutual benefit and pleasure indeed, let 
parent and child have a sort of game at finding 
objects. It may be called "the thing game," 
or, if you please, " the object game." The wall, 
ceiling, window, floor, carpet, table, chairs, and 
so on, will probably first strike attention, and 
be named. Soon all the prominent objects of 
the room will be exhausted. Then there will 
be a scramble for something more. Objects 
will be discovered which otherwise would not 
have met the eye, or been thought of The 
head of a nail, a shred of cloth, the minutest 
thread, or any particle of matter; a spot or 
mark on the furniture or wall, or any thing 
else — any thing which may bear a name, will 
be detected one after another; and he is the 
victor who shall find the minutest or most out- 
of-the-way thing to which may be put a name. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 33 

The object game. 

or the last thing to be found. At another 
time the same game may be played with ob- 
jects in the yard, or any where around the 
house, or as far away as the sight can reach 
from door or window. Different apartments 
in the house may be made the scene of the 
game. If the time be the dark evening or a 
winter's cold day, let the trial be who shall 
call to recollection the most objects in some 
other room in the house, or in the more distant 
shed or barn. What an inventory will thus 
be made of the implements and various goods 
of the household! You might go farther and 
call to recollection what may have been no- 
ticed in a neighbor's domicile, or any where 
else. Thus, in mere exciting pastime, you will 
develop in your child and in yourselves tbe 
central and most important faculty of the intel- 
lect. You will all be trained to keep your eyes 
open, to look, to see, and to separate one thing 
from another, and thus to obtain knowledge 
of new and distinct things wherever you go. 
How keen at catching objects at a glance will 
you become, if you only try ! You know how 
the sailor will discover a ship at the distant 

C 



34 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Qualities : form. 

horizon wlien it seems but a speck, but wliicli 
the undisciplined passenger could not possibly 
perceive. It is because he has been for years 
searching the ocean's surface for any object 
which may break the blank uniformity, and 
especially for his eye's love — a sail. His suc- 
cess at such perception is a matter of discipline 
and use. Just so the sight of children might 
be trained to acuteness of observation among 
the objects on the land, if parents would set 
themselves and their children about it. Of 
course, as was intimated before, there will be 
differences in accomplishment according to dif- 
ferences in organic constitution. 

qualities: form. 

Next after individualizing the world of mat- 
ter around comes the learning of the forms of 
things. These forms can be seen by the eye 
in the light — can be felt by the hand in the 
dark : they are the objects of two senses. 
Soon will the child learn the ideas and the 
names, long and short, square and round. In- 
deed, you may cheaply provide blocks exhib- 
iting all the various geometrical figures, and 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 35 

Size and measurement. 

the child in due time (for I would force noth- 
ing) might learn the various geometrical names. 
At his impressible age, it will be as easy for 
him to fasten on his memory a scientific term 
as any other word, if there is only a real visi- 
ble object under it. How easily, then, will he 
learn whether any object his sense falls on is 
most like a square, triangle, cube, parallelo- 
gram, sphere, cone, pyramid, or any thing else ! 
I need not here run through the several geo- 
metrical figures and names. You may easily 
get a book and look at them, and the advan- 
tage to yourselves and children will amply re- 
pay the trouble. 

SIZE AND MEASUREMENT. 

To proceed with qualities: next comes the 
size of things. The child soon perceives this, 
without your telling him that one object is 
larger or smaller than another. All he wants 
from you are words to designate differences in 
dimension. Yes, he does want, or rather need 
something else. He needs training to accura- 
cy in discriminating the size and bulk of differ- 
ent things. Let him then have, when he shall 



36 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Size and measurement. 

be old enough, a two-foot rule such as carpen- 
ters use, or the household yard-stick, marked 
off into feet and inches, and set him to measur- 
ing objects, whatever or wherever he pleases, 
bating all harm. He can find the length and 
breadth of the floor ; the length, width, and 
height of furniture. Indeed, have him meas- 
ure the dimensions of any thing he may put 
his rule against within or around the house. 
When he shall be old enough, furnish him with 
a ten-foot pole, or a rope, or an iron chain of 
longer stretch, and with this set him to find- 
ing the length and breadth of a field, or the 
distance between your own house and the next 
neighbor's, or the school-house, or the church. 
Thus your boy is becoming a surveyor before 
he knows it. This procedure will not be a 
dry task to him, unless you make it so ; it will 
seem to make a man of him, and he can not 
but like it. I see no impropriety, moreover, 
in a sister's taking a part in such outdoor, 
healthy, and instructive action. Certainly all 
indoor exercises in such measurements will fall 
within the proprieties of female life, and much 
in the uses of it. Why not make a sort of 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 37 

Size and measurement. 

competition and game of this quality of size ? 
Let a guess be made as to the length, breadth, 
or height of any thing, and then see who comes 
nearest to the fact by the measure. Your boys 
and girls will like it, and so will you, if you 
have any of your young sportiveness still left 
in your soul. 

But some will inquire of what practical ad- 
vantage can this possibly be in the future? It 
is replied that the active business of almost 
every one depends more or less on off-hand 
and immediate decisions based on a knowledge 
of things. The farmer does not often scientif- 
ically survey the portion of a field he intends 
to plow up for a crop. He decides on the 
quantity through his previous knowledge of 
comparative dimensions. The more accurate- 
ly he can judge of lengths and breadths, the 
nearer will be his work to his wishes. Often- 
times this kind of judgment will come into play 
in respect to spaces and distances. Again, in 
buying and selling loads of commodities, men 
often guess at the dimensions, or judge by the 
eye without definite numerical measurement. 
He, therefore, who shall have the truest per- 



88 THE CULTUEE OF THE 

Weight. 

ception of size will have the advantage. In 
the affairs of a household, moreover, such as 
the cutting and repairing of garments and the 
proportioning of quantities in cookery, the fac- 
ulty of size comes into most useful requisition. 
Why, therefore, shall it not be assiduously de- 
veloped from early life onward, to the saving 
of work, time, money, and comfort quite worth 
the while ? 

WEIGHT. 

Now comes the quality of weight. In a 
most incidental, unlesson-like, and playful way 
you can teach your child, boy or girl, the dif- 
ference between one thing and another as to 
weight. Let him lift first one object, then 
another, so that he may perceive the difference 
in the pressure upon his hands. You can tell 
him that this pressure is weight, and that one 
thing weighs more than another. He will 
learn, too, that the difference in different kinds 
of things does not depend on size. In due 
time you can show him what it does depend 
on. Provide some scales. These will not cost 
more than a few cigars, or any other luxury 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 39 

Color. 

which you exhaust in the using, or some little 
piece of finery quickly worn out, but the scales 
will last for years, and outweigh their own 
price a thousand times over in this educational 
usefulness. With these let him weigh all the 
various commodities proper to be put into 
them. Do not make a task of the matter, but 
rather a pastime which you may join in your- 
selves. In the first place, let each one present 
take the commodity in hand, and lift it up and 
down, and guess how much it weighs, or rather 
try to form an accurate judgment about it. 
Then put it into the scale and see who comes 
nearest to the fact. Thus the little company, 
parents and children, not only receive enter- 
tainment, but gain knowledge, and a special 
faculty is disciplined for future and valuable 
use in the affairs of life. It would be easy to 
show the special application of this training to 
practical purposes, as in the case of the other 
faculties and qualities. Thinking readers can 
readily illustrate for themselves. 

COLOR. 

There is a special faculty likewise to observe 



40 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Color. 

color. Such different properties of objects as 
form and weight must certainly require the 
use of a specific power ; so also must color, for 
this differs from every other property in na- 
ture. This faculty of color may be disciplined 
to marvelous acuteness and enjoyment if pains 
are only taken with it. Of all the appearances 
of matter, the child earliest observes and de- 
lights in color. It is the color of the fire and 
the lamp which so early attracts the infant eye; 
so of other objects one after another. Bright 
and dazzling colors are his joy. As his age 
shall warrant, teach him the names of the va- 
rious distinct colors. By the help of a book, 
if you need one, you may be somewhat me- 
thodical in your instructions. You can give 
him the names of the three primary colors, then 
of the secondary, and at length of all the va- 
rious colors made up from these, together with 
the many hues, tints, and tinges which have 
names. Provide patterns of cloth as copies, 
and from these let the child get the idea and 
name of the distinctive colors. This will be a 
pleasant matter, if you choose to make it so. 
You may get up a color game, as you do with 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 41 

Color. 

the other qualities. Take any object of an in- 
determinate color, and see who will quickest 
find the standard color which it most nearly 
resembles. See who shall name the colors, 
hues, or tinges to the greatest number of ob- 
jects according to some text-book. Here are 
the things both of art and of nature innumera- 
ble all around, with colors of all sorts ; what a 
source of entertainment and discipline for the 
special faculty, if parents will but think of it, 
and go at the work, or rather the sport ! The 
training of this faculty is of singular import- 
ance to those who have much to do with dry 
goods, and especially to ladies, who are the 
principal purchasers. I once knew a farmer's 
wife, the mother of an infant boy and of a lit- 
tle gi?rl perhaps three years old at the time I 
have in mind. She had no help but that of 
her own hands and of this little bud of a maid. 
Among other things, she must make, mend, 
and alter garments. She could not well run 
up stairs to a closet or drawer for a piece of 
cloth whenever she might want it, so she had 
all the various fabrics of wool, cotton, or silk 
done up respectively in separate parcels by 



42 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Nature. 

themselves. Not only so, but, if I recollect 
aright, she had a subdivision of fabrics accord- 
ing to color. So, when in her work the mother 
needed a particular cloth of a particular color, 
she sent the little active and willing girl away 
up stairs for it. If she made a mistake in the 
selection, she had to go back and forth till she 
got the right little roll. The result was that 
the child became exceedingly discriminating in 
whatever belonged to cloths and their colors. 
She at length manifested remarkable taste as 
to the fitness and proprieties of dress. Her 
natural organization might have been favora- 
ble to such ability. Nevertheless, such an 
early use of the special faculty must have en- 
hanced this prominent characteristic. 

NATURE. 

In this training to the observance and en- 
joyment of color you will, of course, not omit 
the infinite variety in the aspects of nature. 
With sunshine and cloud, mountains, lowlands, 
woods, waters, and other features of nature, 
what a range for the eye! How it may be 
'taught to fasten and feast on distinctive colors, 
and their many lights and shades ! 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 43 

Flowers. 

FLOWERS. 

Flowers can not possibly be omitted, for 
they are among the first things which attract 
a child's admiring gaze. These will afford al- 
most numberless lessons in discriminating col- 
ors. They may not be so practically useful as 
the lessons on cloths, but the living and won- 
derful beauty will make the instruction far 
more delightful. What a taste might be nur- 
tured, what pleasure secured and continually 
enhanced by a little pains ! How easily might 
the delighted mind be carried, in due time, from 
the charm of the flowers into the rich botanic- 
al science which lies in their various charac- 
teristics, and in the leafy structure which they 
adorn ! 

Another special subject of notice is the va- 
rious colors and hues of the different vegetable 
productions. What a difference between one 
kind of grain or grass and another! What 
changes of hue in the same kind as the growth 
proceeds ! Habituate your child to watch, day 
after day, as the invisible Painter varies the 
tints, and tinges, and shades. Direct his eye to 



44 THE CULTUEE OF THE 

Grains. 

all the appearances presented by the vegeta- 
ble realm, as there may be cloud or sunshine, 
breeze or calm. Thus training him to observe 
Nature in all her many shows, you may fit him 
for landscape painting ; at any rate, you will 
prepare him better to enjoy the painter's work. 
But, above all, you will educate him to delight 
in the matchless wonders of the all -perfect 
Hand. 

GRAINS. 

Furthermore, do not let the little learner go 
without knowing one grain from another as to 
both stalk and kernel. It would be well to 
put each kind of grain into a little box or 
transparent vial for convenient future obser- 
vations. It is perfectly wonderful how much 
music or mathematics, and many other things, 
are learned, or rather are pretended to be learn- 
ed, while the commonest and most useful things 
are left out of the catalogue of requirements. 
I once traveled in a stage-coach with a little 
girl eleven years old, who was going from her 
home to a high-priced fashionable boarding- 
school fifty miles away to be educated. The 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 45 

Trees. 

schools close by her father's door — and they 
were quite good schools too — would not an- 
swer. I made some inquiries of the child as 
to the particulars of her course of instruction. 
Her studies seemed to me very remarkable, but 
she knew so little of them that she could make 
no remark about them herself. We passed a 
large wheat-field, goldenly rich and beautiful, 
for it was just before the harvest. I inquired 
if she knew what grain that was, and she had 
no more idea of it than she would have had of 
the vegetation of the tropics if she had been 
dropped suddenly down into the midst of it. 
She was equally ignorant of a great many oth- 
er striking objects and useful things along the 
road. Just so thousands of our young ladies 
go to school, spend money, tug at lessons, and 
learn words, and yet hardly know what their 
bread is made of. At least they know not 
much about industrious Nature's primal and 
indispensable factory out in the fields. 

TREES. 

A word more about another kind of produc- 
tion. Your child learns, doubtless, very early 



46 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Trees. 

which is the apple, or pear, or peach, or plum 
tree, and how each looks, if such be near by ; 
and can also tell the elms from the maples 
.standing, it may be, at the door or along the 
street. But it is possible, unless you take some 
little pains, and certainly if you put him into 
the school-prison early and there keep him, 
that he will not advance much farther in his 
knowledge of trees. Many a boy grows up 
without being able to name the trees in a neigh- 
boring wood, and of qualities he is much more 
ignorant still. As to girls, the majority know 
next to nothing about these magnificent mon- 
archs of the vegetable kingdom. They lift 
themselves all alive out of the ground, stretch 
out their leafy sceptres, wear their foliaged 
crowns, and there tower, waiting to be looked 
at, admired, and studied ; and yet, with all their 
beauty and stateliness, how little noticed they 
are ! Now, friends, parents, let it not be so with 
your children, whether sons or daughters, if 
you would have them truly educated. Turn 
their attention to the difference in form and 
general appearance between one spe6ies of tree 
and another. They will most readily learn 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 47 

Leaves. 

the names. Show them clearly the different 
parts of the tree, and teach them the words 
designating each part. According as the age 
permits, you can have much conversation with 
them on the philosophy of its growth and na- 
ture. I was once walking on a farm with the 
owner's little boy five years of age, and he 
pointed out to my unnoticing sight, with a 
keen eye and the zest of a naturalist, a pecul- 
iar characteristic of a great oak near which we 
passed. That father, I found, made it a pas- 
time to show his child the things of nature, 
and to make explanations about them ; and I 
am sure it was a pastime to my bright com- 
panion and instructor. 

But to proceed : take the little learner into 
the woods, and see what new trees you can 
find there, and help him to a knowledge of 
these. If you are ignorant yourself, become 
his fellow-learner. 

LEAVES. 

^ One thing in particular might be done to 
improve the observing powers as to minute- 
ness, and to prepare entertainment for the fu- 



48 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Leaves. 

ture. The leaf of one species of tree differs 
from that of another. Now, let the exact dif- 
ference be noticed, and at length fixed in the 
memory. Let a number of leaves be culled 
from each tree, and thoroughly dried by press- 
ure in a book ; then, when all the foliage has 
fallen under the cold, and the inclement winter 
has come, what fun and instruction too can you 
and your children have with the leaves! You 
can make it a pleasant game to see who shall 
best tell the name of the tree to which each 
kind of leaf belonged. It may take several 
games to associate some twenty or thirty of 
these little things, so variously shaped and 
notched, each with the name of its parent of 
the pasture or forest. Then, when the next 
vegetative season shall arrive, how sharp the 
young eyes will be after the different kinds of 
trees, each with its peculiarly -shaped foliage ! 
The leaves of shrubs, plants, grains, and grass- 
es might also be prepared in the same way for 
the winter's amusement and instruction. It 
would be a good plan, moreover, to provide 
little pieces of all sorts of wood, letting a por- 
tion of the bark remain as one of the distinct- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 49 

Minerals. 

ive marks. Thus the child and yourselves, 
companions as docile as he, will learn the dif- 
ference between the color, fibre, and strength 
of one species of wood and those qualities in 
another species. He will come to know the 
kind of wood from its internal look as well as 
from its external, with which he began. By 
this inspection he will be gradually acquaint- 
ing himself with all the various sorts of timber 
which, in after life, he may have to do with ei- 
ther as a manufacturer or a purchaser. As 
things have been, this valuable knowledge has 
been left to a life-long experience of mistakes 
and losses, mingled in with whatever successes 
may have come. 

MINERALS. 

Still farther, you may lead your young look- 
er into the mineral kingdom, and find many 
treasures there before saying any thing about 
mineralogy. You may, however, give the term 
if you please, and he will remember and like it 
at his age as well as any other word. You 
may incidentally teach him many mineralogic- 
al terms, only be sure to have them stand for 

D 



50 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Minerals. 

visible and real objects. What makes chil- 
dren dislike these matters is the taking the 
life out of them, if they have any, by a hard 
lesson -task, without any intelligible explana- 
tion. In the first place, you can easily have at 
hand for illustration specimens of the several 
metals in common use, such as iron, lead, copper, 
silver, gold, and other metals, and also their va- 
rious combinations. Let the differences, uses, 
and comparative values of these substances be 
shown, together with their original locations 
and conditions in the earth. How very much 
you might communicate, from time to time, 
about these minerals, storing treasures in the 
mind richer and more lasting than the precious 
metals themselves ! Again : have your child 
hunt for rocks which are peculiar for size, 
shape, color, streaks, spots, or mossy pictures. 
Show him the different layers of earth, dis- 
closed by a cut through a hill where a road 
passes, or in a river's bank. He has eyes as 
well as a farmer to notice how the productive 
soils differ from each other, and also from the 
barren strata beneath. Thus, from this early 
date onward, he will obtain that knowledge of 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 51 

Minerals. 

land which is all-important to the agricultur- 
ist, and indeed is useful to any one who culti- 
vates but a little patch of a garden. You may 
have a game together to see who shall find the 
greatest number of curious stones ; or, if you 
are at the water-side, try who shall be most 
successful in spying out beautiful pebbles. 
This slight beginning in mineralogical science 
may possibly lead to a zealous and thorough 
continuance. Many years ago, some crystals 
imbedded in a lump of iron ore were pointed 
out to a youth.* He was so surprised at their 
regularity and beauty, and with the fact that 
they had been hidden for ages in that entirely 
different and shapeless mass of matter, that his 
eyes were afterward put on the watch for sim- 
ilar things. This trivial circumstance first gave 
the start to one of the most distinguished min- 
eralogists of our country and the author of val- 
uable treatises on the science. Now, if your 
boy shall not become eminent, he may, by your 
aid, become a minute observer of mineral sub- 
stances. Ever afterward his eye will be sharp- 
er to detect them, and his traveling be made 

* The late Francis Alger, of Boston. 



52 THE CULTURE OF THE 



Animals. 



interesting by boulders in the pasture, stones 
bj the wayside, or even gravel rattling be- 
neath his carriage-wheels in the road. 

It will be well to help your little fellow-ram- 
bler to begin a mineralogical cabinet, although 
this may seem too grand a phrase for the occa- 
sion. The rudest boards, and the lad's collec- 
tion of curious pebbles or coarser stones to put 
upon them, will suffice to commence with, if 
there be nothing better. The very fact that 
a particular depository has been prepared for 
such things will induce effort to fill it up. 
Great pleasure, perhaps great usefulness, may 
grow in the future from such humble begin- 
ning. Should it be so, your son will thank 
you a thousand times for this first setting out 
in the science which he got from a loving par- 
ent. 

ANIMALS. 

If the very ground beneath the feet can be 
made to yield so much to the early mind, how 
much more the living creatures which move 
above it ! How delighted even infants are with 
the pictures of animals ! What a marvel, then. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 53 

Animals. 

are the substantial animate creatures them- 
selves! These move about, and have a pur- 
pose in moving, as has the child himself. They 
do something, and there is a sort of wonder 
what they will do next. The household dog 
and cat are favorites, and the animals about the 
yard and barn are objects of interest — all this 
before much instruction can be given. Nature 
is getting the pupil ready. In due season, and 
soon will this come to most, how much may be 
taught concerning the distinctive natures and 
habits of these tenants of the homestead ! But 
the wider animal kingdom — curiosity can not 
reach the end of this ; but it can delightedly 
travel on and on, if instruction will only lead 
it forward a little. The birds, which make the 
spring so gladsome and the summer fields and 
groves so all alive, have specific forms, colors, 
notes, habits, histories. Now the boys and girls 
might become knowing and acute in these vari- 
ous matters, just as well as so sharp-eyed aft- 
er birds' nests, as most of them are. Indeed, 
young people in the country, if parents and 
teachers would only look to it, might make no 
small progress in ornithology before the cus- 



54 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Insect curiosities. 

tomary school-years should be over. As for 
the larger four-footed creatures, there is not 
much chance at them, ezcept by happening on 
a menagerie or a wilderness. Some of the 
smaller quadrupeds, however, are within easy 
reach. The nimble, chirruping squirrel has sev- 
eral habits of his own. The opening curiosity 
would be just as ready to learn about these as 
to watch his freakish motions. Even rat and 
mouse might be made something of scientific- 
ally. Perhaps, if more truth were known of 
these skulks, they would seem very much less 
offensive. Even snakes and worms might also 
have a better repute through pleasant associa- 
tions. Let us save our children from a life- 
long disgust, if we can. 

INSECT CURIOSITIES. 

Another division of the animal kingdom 
spreads all around the home in every direction 
— that of insects. How countless their species 
and varieties! There is no reason why the 
young should not be introduced into consid- 
erable acquaintance with the science of ento- 
mology, and this without hard and dry study. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 55 

Insect curiosities. 

Even so long and strange a scientific term 
would be no burden to the fresh memory, be- 
cause it would mean something. What a trifle 
would a microscope cost for family use! so 
that, when any singular little creature should 
be found, there might be a minute and wonder- 
ing inspection. 

There is a country town, one of the roughest 
in New England, which was favored with a 
clergyman who well understood the true meth- 
ods of education. Among other investigations, 
he devoted some of his leisure to entomology. 
Somehow, he inspired the people of the whole 
town, more or less, with his spirit, and espe- 
cially the young. All eyes were opened and 
sharpened to discover some new bug, or worm, 
or butterfly ; and happy was the little boy or 
girl who could run with some prize of the kind 
to the minister, receive his thanks, and get a 
peep through his microscope at the wonders. 
Now, if one man could exercise such an influ- 
ence over a whole town six miles square, what 
might not be expected of young learners, were 
school-teachers in their separate districts, and 
parents at the homestead, all to get their per- 



56 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Fishes and shells. 

ceptions awakened to these variously constitu- 
ted tribes, amid whose creepings, flyings, buzz- 
ings, and hummings they have their own being 
and habitation ! 

FISHES AND SHELLS. 

Again : there are the inhabitants of the wa- 
ters. It is well known how interesting the dis- 
tinguished ichthyologist, Agassiz, can make a 
lecture or an incidental talk about fishes. 
Whether older or younger hearers hang de- 
lighted on his descriptions of the finny crea- 
tures, hardly thought of before, except as now 
and then seen glancing within their own glassy 
element, or as presented by quite another sort 
of professor — the cook, it is anticipated that 
the time will come when parents will be so 
well informed as to show their children, in ta- 
ble conversation, that trout, haddock, and shad 
may afford mental as well as bodily nutriment. 
All that is needed for this purpose is a little 
reading, observation, and a desire to be instruct- 
ive. 

Some families have on hand a great variety 
of shells. It would be a pretty exercise for the 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 57 

rhenomena of nature. 

children, on a winter's day, to sort out these 
flowers of the sea according to species, size, or 
some other rule. Thus several of the observ- 
ing faculties would be cultivated, together with 
pleasant occupation. 

PHENOMENA OF NATURE. 

We will glance again at the inanimate world. 
Various phenomena and processes in it may be 
made interesting and instructive subjects for 
sight and speech. Nature is passing through 
changes and performing operations continually 
all around. The child observes many of them. 
When they first strike his sense his curiosity 
is likely to be aroused, and he may ask, " Why 
is this or that? what makes it do so?" The 
loftier reflective faculties are now beginning to 
operate : they want to know the how, the why, 
and the wherefore of every thing, especially of 
the changes and the actions of things. The re- 
flective faculty — the causality more than any 
other — prompts to questions. In answer to 
this, the considerate parent will reply and in- 
struct ; but many a thoughtless or busy one will 
turn the child off, and thus stop him from stud- 



58 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Phenomena of nature. 

ying lessons and receiving knowledge from the 
greatest and truest book in the universe — the 
universe itself. Before long, in ordinary expe- 
rience, the child becomes so entirely accustom- 
ed to these natural phenomena that he loses all 
curiosity about them, and asks no more ques- 
tions. Thus millions live and die in the civil- 
ized world, and even in this book-blessed and 
school-favored land, utterly ignorant of wonder- 
ful processes going on around them all the 
time ; whereas, had the earliest curiosity been 
kept up and nurtured, creation would have 
been an ever-opening and yet untiring volume. 
I once asked quite a large boy what clouds 
were made of. He replied, " Smoke." He had 
seen with his own eyes thick smoke go up into 
the air from all the chimneys of the neighbor- 
hood, and what could it possibly do there but 
be turned into clouds ? Nobody had ever 
pointed out to him the grand round of the va- 
pors from the ocean and all the waters of the 
land, up through the sky, and down to the 
earth, the streams, and the seas again, doing all 
the world good on the way. Yet that boy was 
at school, and might have been great at words, 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 59 

Phenomena of nature. 

remarkable before his school committee, and 
wonderful to his parents. 

I asked that young girl in the stage-coach, 
before mentioned, what clouds were, and she 
replied, "Oh! they are great bags up in the 
sky ; and now and then holes get torn, and 
down comes the rain." This was all she seem- 
ed to know about this ever-varying and mani- 
festly beneficent part of nature. But was she 
not at a grand boarding-school, learning great 
words in big books, and at high expense ? "Was 
she not getting a fashionable education ? What 
more could the world ask of her ? 

But it is not boys and girls alone who are 
ignorant of Nature. A large proportion of the 
grown-np do not understand her most common 
operations and appearances. There are mists, 
clouds, rain, hail, snow, ice, dew, fire, light, air ; 
now how few in all the civilized world have a 
philosophical knowledge of these phenomena I 
Why is it so ? One answer may be that they 
were not explained to the young. Their eyes 
at length became accustomed to them, the new- 
ness passed away, and curiosity passed away 
with it; so a whole lifetime is spent in igno- 



60 THE OBSERVING FACULTIES. 

Phenomena of nature. 

ranee of changes, combinations, and beneficent 
results in the wise plans and works of the 
adorable Creator. Could some such natural 
phenomenon take place but once in a hundred 
years, and then be advertised as a spectacle, 
there would be a rush of eager multitudes to 
behold it, and a most earnest listening to the 
scientific explanations. Ah ! what minute proc- 
esses, what mighty movements, what number- 
less benefits every moment ! and how millions 
of the most privileged of our race live in the 
midst, and see not, and ask not how or why ! 
Good parents, you are entreated not to suffer 
your own beloved children to grow up with 
such deadened curiosity and contented igno- 
rance. If you have not the requisite knowl- 
edge already, become fellow-learners with them. 
A book or two for the purpose can be bought 
for what you would spend for some transient 
amusement or perishable luxury.* 

* The treatises here named would be convenient : Tate's 
" First Lessons in Philosophy, or Science of Familiar 
Things;" Wells's "Science of Common Things;" Brewer's 
"Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar;" 
and Peterson's "Familiar Science, or the Scientific expla- 
nation of Common Things." 



FARTHER SUGGESTIONS 



ON THE 



CULTURE OF THE OBSERVING FACULTIES. 



NOTE. 

The following suggestions pertain to a different class of 
qualities — those which are not inherent in substance itself, 
but which are circumstantial and concomitant. These also 
are exceedingly important subjects of the observing faculties, 
and afford occasion for careful direction and discipline on 
the part of parents and other teachers. Those who have an 
earnest and conscientious interest in early and right mental 
culture will proceed without requiring any special invitation. 



FARTHER SUGGESTIONS. 



PLACE. 

PLACE, OR GEOGRAPHY AT HOME. 

Place, or geography at home. 

A CHILD may begin geography long before 
he goes to school, or, rather, he may lay the 
sure and proper foundations for this science. 
When he shall have been taught the points of 
the compass — east, west, north, and south — 
then which side of the room the fire is, which 
the table, and in which direction are the barn 
and the garden ; and when he shall see just 
how the land lies and looks close around his 
home, he has had an introduction to geogra- 
phy, or has, in a small degree, been prepared 
for an introduction. A beginning has been 
made according to the real nature of things. 
He understands what he asks about and what 
he is told. All the words have a meaning to 
his little mind. Now what you may do, and 



64 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Place, or geography at home. 

what he will be glad of, is that you carry him 
on a little farther, and still farther than he 
would go, clearly and certainly, without your 
personal guidance. You must talk him along, 
and walk him along, until you have together 
surveyed the neigborhood all around, and he 
has obtained a positive knowledge of it — a 
knowledge which he feels to be his own, just 
as he feels that a knowledge of your door- 
yard or sitting-room is his own. For instance, 
you can ask him in what direction the street 
runs ; and, if he has not already found out, 
tell him, and he will soon know beyond forget- 
ting. Have him learn who lives in the next 
house to his own home on the right hand 
and on the left ; who in the second, third, and 
fourth, and so on. Of course, this could hardly 
be done in the brick-blocked, heterogeneously 
neighbored but unneighborly city. Children 
at a very early age somehow learn what are a 
road, a field, a pasture, a wood, a hill, and a 
brook. Indeed, they quickly become familiar 
with most of the prominent features of nature, 
and the words by which they are designated. 
They learn much by the incidental conversa- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 65 

Place, or geography at home. 

tion of persons around. But you might, by a 
little pains, make your child a more accurate 
as well as far-reaching observer than he would 
otherwise be. Train him to notice every dis- 
tinct object within the scope of his eye ; all 
the inequalities of the surface, all the varying 
tints of the vegetation between the first tender 
green of the spring and the russet of the au- 
tumn. Every rock, every little hillock and 
bush, or whatever else may make a distinctly 
observable thing, should be a lesson to his eye. 
Were these diminutive traits in the landscape 
only magnified, they would be such geograph- 
ical features as might be noticed in the big 
school-book; yet the fact that they seem but 
insignificant lines and dots, as it were, does not 
make them ungeographical. If geography, ac- 
cording to precise definition, is a description of 
the earth, then, when these diminutive things 
are described by your child, he makes real 
geography out of them, and it will be unspeak- 
ably more profitable than the dry, hard de- 
scription of text-books, as they have generally 
been forced upon poor little learners, or rather 
word-getters. If a child be accustomed to such 

E 



66 THE CULTURE OF THE 

How not to get lost. 

minute observation, he will not, of course, over- 
look the more prominent marks in a prospect. 
But, in farther commendation, even some of 
these minutiae of the land's surface are impor- 
tant indications to the eye of science ; and 
would you not be glad to have your son look 
at nature with such an eye? Wherever he 
shall ramble or travel, would you not have 
him exercise a keen, detective sight, instead of 
a vacant gaze ? 

HOW NOT TO GET LOST. 

The exact understanding of the points of the 
compass is practically of no small importance. 
Many persons most easily lose the direction 
when they find themselves in a new place. 
Indeed, there are those who are absolutely so 
turned about that sunrise and sunset seem to 
have exchanged horizons, and it takes some 
considerable looking round and reflection to 
get out of the bewildering dilemma. Did all 
roads run at right angles toward east and 
west, north and south, and were all houses 
built square upon them, there would be no 
difficulty. But, trans versed and crooked in all 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 67 

How not to get lost. 

directions as roads and streets have to be, the 
points of the compass are sometimes hardly 
found in a whole lifetime. Indeed, there are 
those who, after a long residence in Boston, 
scarcely know the direction in which runs that 
most familiar of all its thoroughfares, Washing- 
ton Street, or which way exactly the grand and 
far-seen State-house faces. It seems, then, that 
there might be a real advantage in early and 
continually training the observation as to the 
points of the compass. At home, it can be 
made a matter altogether incidental, and cost 
no time which may be better employed. Let 
the cardinal points be well fixed, and it will 
be easy to fix in the child's mind the direction 
of prominent objects between, and also the 
course of the streets, roads, and streams. 

In the exercise of individualizing objects be- 
fore mentioned, as the child's understanding 
shall advance, it will be well to locate the vari- 
ous objects, in all directions, in respect to the 
points of the compass. There might be a little 
emulous pastime about it, as was recommended 
before in the culture of the perceptions. Why 
should not the parents be at the pains of pur- 



68 THE CULTURE OF THE 

How not to get lost. 

chasing a compass for this very purpose? It 
would cost no more than many other things 
usually provided, but which might equally as 
well be done without. With this instrument, 
every point of direction might be exactly es- 
tablished. Thus it would be not only easy, but 
pleasant and profitable, for children to be train- 
ed, as they grow up, to know the precise point, 
from home as a centre, of every farm and house 
in the town ; or, if in the city, of every promi- 
nent object there. So accustomed would the 
young learners become to such definite obser- 
vations, that, as they should travel out to other 
towns now and then, they would quite readily 
fall into these exercises ; and the turnings of a 
road or the windings of a stream, the house on 
a hill, the village church spire in the distance, 
might be made an additional trial for this sort 
of judgment. So eventually, wherever they 
should travel through the country, their heads 
would not get confused, as now so often hap- 
pens. At least sunrise and sunset would keep 
their places, to their eye, just as Nature really 
puts them. 



OBSEKVING FACULTIES. 69 

Judging of distances. 

JUDGING OF DISTANCES. 

In this connection, it may be well to say 
something more about the measure of spaces 
and distances. There is a great deficiency in 
people's minds generally as to accuracy in dis- 
tance. One has only to travel in the country, 
and inquire of various people how far it is from 
one certain place to another certain place, es- 
pecially if it be as to the way from one town 
to another, to be convinced how vague are the 
notions of many persons in respect to space. 
Why need this be so, if parents, at times, with- 
out interfering with any business, should just 
instruct and amuse themselves and their chil- 
dren in this matter ? If a father and son are 
proceeding to a distant field to work, or to any 
field, why not for once take a ten-foot pole or a 
measuring chain, and find out the exact dis- 
tance? But suppose a boy is going of an er- 
rand to a neighbor's, who lives, according to 
vague supposition, a quarter or half a mile off: 
let him take his pole or chain, and get the ex- 
act measurement, and settle it for good and all. 
Or, on some leisure time, let the boys, if there 



70 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Education on a hill-top. 

are more than one, and the father with them, if 
he pleases, make a little pastime of the thing. 
This measuring entertainment may from time 
to time be extended to any house, or any ob- 
ject, or through any distance whatever, accord- 
ing to convenience. Thus a judgment about 
distances will be formed, which will come fre- 
quently into use in subsequent life. 

EDUCATION ON A HILL-TOP. 

Suppose, now, a pleasant day, and a little 
leisure at command, to afford your children, 
and indeed yourselves equally, some little en- 
tertainment, perchance instruction. You have 
already become acquainted, perhaps, with what- 
ever is within view of home. You have ob- 
served every house, field, pasture, wood, rock, 
shrub, gleam of water. However, it is not nec- 
essary to wait to get all these nearest things by 
eye and heart. Take your little company to 
the highest hill-top you can conveniently reach. 
From this elevation can be discerned various 
prominent objects in towns around. Give the 
young observers the names of these localities, 
and just the direction in which they lie. There 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 71 

Education on a hill-top. 

are certain eminences, each perhaps with a 
name : tell them the name. There, beneath, 
are the valleys also. Perhaps it may be known 
that a considerable river has its course through 
some of them, or at least some brook large 
enough to turn the useful mill. Describe these 
streams, well known to your larger experience, 
which the children can not discern in their 
sunken and shaded channels. But they can see 
with the naked eye, as well as you, the many 
varied features of the landscape between the 
centre where they stand and the whole horizon 
round. Now make a game of it: see who can 
count the greatest number of distinct fields, or 
pastures, or separate pieces of woodland, and 
the greatest number of hills. Indeed, as to this 
feature, you may let the eye descend to the mi- 
nutest prominences on the surface, and you will 
find that the sight will become amazingly sharp, 
and pick up the least little haycock of a hill at 
a distance which would not have been thought 
possible before. Then let the vision hunt after 
valleys, and any little dips and crinkles in the 
land's surface, in the same manner. There are 
cliffs, and rocks, and single trees standing in 



72 THE CULTURE OF THE 

The use. 

open land, and houses and out • houses to be 
playfully sought likewise. Withal, take note 
in which direction exactly any road may run, or 
valley wind, or stream meander ; at what point 
of the compass any house or hill may be situ- 
ated. If there be a mountain in the distance, 
there will be something not only to fasten the 
eye, but to feed it with beauty or lift it to gran- 
deur. Depend upon it, my friends, that you 
will give your children and yourselves not only 
a most entertaining, but a very instructive ex- 
cursion. The visit to the spot may be repeat- 
ed several times before all the objects of the 
expanse shall fall beneath inspection, or the les- 
son or the pleasure be exhausted. By-and-by 
you will climb, with your little company of ob- 
servers, some loftier hill or the mountain-top, 
and, from such a height, advance your knowl- 
edge, possibly, to distant states. 

THE USE. 

Now let us consider the practical advantage 
of this actual observation of the earth's surface, 
and the various objects, natural or artificial, 
thereon presented. In the first place, it is evi- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 73 

The use. 

dent to all that the examination of any mate- 
rial thing by the naked faculties is better, for 
all possible purposes, than the reading or stud- 
ying of a description of it. It is safer, certain- 
ly, to see a farm with one's own eyes before 
purchasing it, than to trust to any written de- 
scription. The general who has actually in- 
spected the ground on which he is to make a 
campaign is far better prepared for its emer- 
gencies than if he knew the field of operations 
only as presented by the map. The same may 
be said of every practical concern. The mind 
must be prepared to comprehend clearly what 
is distant, and what can not be come at through 
the naked senses, by a thorough inspection of 
similar things within their reach. 

These intellectual facts have scarcely been 
thought of by the generality of parents and 
teachers in this time-consuming, and, we may 
say, heart-burdening matter of education. Now 
what do children, for the most part, see when 
they cast their eyes upon a map ? Nothing but 
a plain surface of paper, with black lines crook- 
ing here and there, called roads and rivers, and 
little dots having the names of towns and cit- 



74 THE CULTURE OF THE 



Where and how arithmetic should begin. 



ies, with blotches standing for mountains ; and 
this is just about all. The brute animals would 
take into notice almost as much. But with this 
actual training of the observing powers, as has 
been recommended, there would appear right 
on the map, as it were, in definite forms and 
colors, seen bj the vivid imagination, real hills, 
valleys, streams, roads, every thing just as the 
map was intended to represent them. That 
plain paper surface would seem moulded into 
all the various features and appearances of na- 
ture by that mind's eye which had been study- 
ing the real earth in these pleasant family ex- 
cursions. Thus geographical language would 
be all filled and made rich with real science — 
the earth's facts. Pray try the experiment, 
and see. 



N U M B E E. 

WHERE AND HOW ARITHMETIC SHOULD BEGIN. 

An early intellectual exercise, as has been 
before mentioned, is that of individualizing ob- 
jects; the considering of any separable portion 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 75 

Where and how arithmetic should begin. 

of matter by itself. This idea of distinct things, 
of individualities, is one of the primitive foun- 
dations of all knowledge ; and the idea, there- 
fore, is among the earliest introduced into the 
mind. The exercise of individuality affords 
the first occasion for the action of another fac- 
ulty, that of number. This, of course, must 
wait till words can be acquired and be applied 
to things. Quite an advance is usually made 
in a knowledge of things and their names be- 
fore the idea of number is distinctly appre- 
hended, and its appropriate terms intelligibly 
used. Counting, however, is an exercise which 
children very early perform. Friends put them 
to it in some playful mood, or to divert them 
from a trifling grief. They are asked, perhaps, 
how many thumbs they have, or how many 
fingers. In this way, or in some other as in- 
cidental, that science begins which reaches up 
into the sublimest mathematics. It does not 
take long to get through thumbs and fingers, 
and to the first and all - important waymark, 
ten in the numerical progress. So far, each 
term has a thing to which it is applied — a 
thing to be seen and felt ; but beyond this, the 



76 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Where and how arithmetic should begin. 

majority of children, according to observation, 
are taught to use the terms abstractly, to utter 
them without any reference to individual and 
observable objects. There are, no doubt, par- 
ents who, in teaching the child, are wise enough 
to apply, in a much greater extent, the numer- 
als to substantial things. Sometimes children 
themselves, without any hint from others, will 
make the application. Nevertheless, the ma- 
jority, I think, in their first acquisition of nu- 
merical terms, are taught the words without 
things, in the same manner as much of other 
education is conducted. Now this need not 
be so ; it ought not to be, inasmuch as individ- 
ual things are all around, from one up to hund- 
reds, thousands, and millions ; and for every 
numerical term there may be a positive object 
on which to place the eye. Thus the little 
learner would clearly apprehend that counting 
is not merely putting one new word after an- 
other, but is adding thing to things, object to 
objects, one after another ; it is making an in- 
crease of quantities under the notice and evi- 
dence of his own immediate senses. In count- 
ing, for instance, articles of furniture in the 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 77 

The counting game. 

room, steps in the stairway, or doors and win- 
dows in the house, the newly -started arithmet- 
ical faculty has something real and firm to run 
along on, as the earlier used perceptive powers 
have. 

In the object game, recommended in a pre- 
vious section, there is an excellent opportunity 
at number; for the game may be not only to 
see who shall be quickest to find objects one 
after another, or who shall come to the very 
last thing possible to be found, but also who 
shall come to the largest number including 
these objects — who shall count the highest in 
the game. Besides things in the house, those 
abroad are sufficient for infinite counting, or 
until the mind even of the adult might get ut- 
terly tired and confused in its simple and 
straight-onward task. 

THE COUNTING GAME. 

It is a good plan to train children to observe 
the proportions between the number and the 
bulk of things. For instance, it will take about 
so many apples, or any other kind of fruit, con- 
sidering size, to fill a certain measure. Let 



78 THE CULTURE OF THE 

The counting game. 

the precise number be ascertained. Make a 
pleasant thing of the matter, and see who shall 
come nearest to the fact in a guess about the 
measure of fruit from the tree, or of potatoes, 
or turnips, or any other production from the 
ground. Though you make a pastime of your 
guessing and counting, the judgment thus edu- 
cated will be a circumstance of positive prac- 
tical gain in those affairs where gain or loss 
depends on accuracy of judgment. 

This counting sport might be carried on in 
many ways, and to an indefinite extent, among 
brothers and sisters, enlivening the home. But 
the parents, especially the father, might well, 
in the evening's leisure, take a part in these 
numerical operations. Agricultural life affords 
a great variety of instances for this kind of 
mental action. Indeed, in any sort of civilized 
life, there must be purchases of farm products, 
and numerous opportunities for maturing the 
judgment about numbers, quantities, bulk, and, 
we may add, cost. There is scarcely a family 
which does not suffer more or less detriment 
in consequence of poor judgment about com- 
modities bought and money paid. Certainly 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 79 

An economical idea, 

the needed ability can not be bad except by 
experience, and this experience might as well 
begin as soon as nature gets ready for it, as to 
be deferred to a later period, when immediate 
occasion shall require. 

AN ECONOMICAL IDEA. 

One particular application of the numerical 
faculty is very easy and of practical impor- 
tance, and must, therefore, be interesting to the 
young learner. Various things of household 
use are in sets, consisting of a definite number. 
For instance, so many chairs belong to a room, 
or there is a particular number in a set of 
crockery, or knives and forks, and of spoons. 
The child will most easily count these, and 
hold the number in memory. This is a matter 
of practical use; for, unless the number of 
these things is kept in mind, there may be an 
unheeded loss. It will be really a strengthen- 
ing of the character, and a positive preparation 
for carefulness in the future, to give a daugh- 
ter quite early a specific charge over these 
more losable implements. There are also oth- 
er sets of things, the number of which might 



80 THE CULTUKE OF THE 

An economical idea. 

be obtained and held with advantage, such as 
napkins, towels, pillow-cases, sheets, and per- 
haps other kinds of furniture. By this appli- 
cation of the enumerative ability, you might 
early enlist a daughter's special interest in your 
goods and their safety. In this connection, 
moreover, she might be easily led to consider 
it her duty to keep them all in their proper 
places, in their proper order, and with all desir- 
able nicety. This care will be a relief to your- 
self, mother, and a profitable discipline to her. 

There is no reason why a boy also might 
not be trained in this numerical knowledge as 
to household matters. Of course, he is ade- 
quate to it equally with a sister ; and, together 
with her, he is more particularly under the 
maternal care in his earlier years. It is alto- 
gether proper, and it will be beneficial for him, 
to learn whatever he may in company and in 
sympathy with sisters. All indoor knowledge, 
however minute, will the better qualify him 
for manhood and a new home of his own. 
Every man should have at least a general 
knowledge of his own household affairs, how- 
ever perfect the wife may be in her adminis- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 81 

Outdoors. 

tration. Now, inasmuch, as a boy's liome edu- 
cation ordinarily continues for some years, it 
would be altogether easy for him to become 
thoroughly acquainted with matters belonging 
to the domestic domain. It could not but be, 
in most cases, altogether pleasant also, as long 
as he is privileged with such affectionate com- 
panionship. 

OUTDOORS. 

There are, however, outdoor concerns in 
which a boy can exercise numerical accuracy 
and care about sets and classes of things. Let 
him count the fowls on the premises, get the 
precise number in each flock of a species, and 
have an eye that none are missing. So also 
let him know and keep in mind the exact 
number of cows, sheep, and their young, or 
whatever else of the domestic animal kind may 
pertain to the homestead. A sister also might 
very properly accompany him in sympathy 
and care ; for thus her mind would be expand- 
ed, and, without any undue straining or task- 
work, would easily and agreeably acquire an 
initiation into that outdoor knowledge which 



82 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Ownership. 

the future wife eventually might wish to have 
in the possessions, plans, and operations of her 
Imsband. 

Some may smile at this reference to proba- 
ble domestic life; but just as surely as early 
habits of any kind will influence the remote 
future for good or for evil, so surely will this 
sort of knowledge and carefulness affect the 
future economical character of the woman. 

OWNERSHIP. 

In this counting of furniture sets and of 
flocks and herds, a child's interest must natu- 
rally be quickened by the circumstance that 
they belong to parents, and have a certain use. 
This matter of ownership will draw the little 
heart toward them. It would be quite a dif- 
ferent affair to put the numeric faculty to work 
on stones in the public road, or pebbles along 
a water-shore. Let it be especially considered 
that the idea of possession and utility will be 
of no small importance to the incipient arith- 
metician. In continuing, therefore, this sort of 
discipline indefinitely onward, let the exercise 
be as much as possible on objects of property. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 83 

Ownership. 

Let there be a sort of game to see who can rec- 
ollect the largest number of articles, or sorts of 
useful things, belonging to the house or the 
premises around, as they would not all be in 
immediate sight. 

In this thorough enumeration of goods there 
is one practical advantage which is certainly of 
no small importance. It occasions the 5^oung 
learner to become acquainted in detail with the 
various commodities, and objects of possession, 
within and around the home. Young persons 
generally have but a vague and imperfect 
knowledge of these things. By this exercise 
they will get in mind an inventory of property 
almost as if they were making an appraisal. 
They will acquire a habit of exactness as to 
what is possessed. Besides, there will come in- 
directly some notion of the specific uses of 
things: this will be an additional advantage. 
How many people have a very confused idea 
of their own possessions! The confusion reach- 
es and continues into their daily affairs with a 
quite injurious effect. Now, could an accurate 
apprehension as to these matters of property be 
made a habit of the mind from very childhood, 



84 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Ownership. 

it would influence a whole business life. It 
would certainly be of no small importance in 
conducting the concerns of a store, especially 
one containing all sorts of goods, as is more 
generally the case in the country. 

It may be objected to the plan of giving chil- 
dren this special idea of property and owner- 
ship that it will make them think too much of 
material possessions, and strengthen their affec- 
tion for these things to a degree which in aft- 
er life might be detrimental to the character. 
Such a consequence would greatly depend on 
the native mental constitution. No doubt some 
children have the love of gain so born with 
them, that, without counter influences, these ex- 
ercises would really intensify the inherited av- 
arice. But there is to be a moral and relig- 
ious education ; and if parents are as faithful in 
this as in the discipline pertaining to material 
things, any such tendency will, in general, be 
quite sufficiently counteracted. Let it be un- 
derstood by readers, once for all, that in the 
present treatise there is intended no such neg- 
lect of the higher nature as will leave the lower 
unrestrained, or in the least degree unbalanced. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 85 

Counting on indefinitely. 

COUNTING ON INDEFINITELY. 

After the class of things above referred to 
shall all have been gone over, the exercise may 
be continued on objects which excite no inter- 
est, except that they are to be enumerated one 
after another, each adding to the sum. With 
the start the young numberer gets in the way 
suggested, he will now be able to count to al- 
most any extent. Let him push ahead on any 
thing coming handiest. 

Outdoors there are, for lessons, trees in the 
woods, and stones in the walls. In counting 
the trees, it may be worth while to remark, 
there will incidentally arise some knowledge of 
species and their uses. There must necessarily 
be caught some glimpses of dendrology, to use 
a scientific term, which, as long and hard as it 
seems, a child would remember as well as any 
other word. Indeed, in touching and individu- 
alizing the stones in a wall, as he should trip 
alongside, what curious varieties he might dis- 
cover ! and thus the diverse riches of mineral- 
ogy would now begin to open on him, if not 
before. Within doors the learner may sit at 



86 THE CULTUEE OF THE 

Counting on indefinitely. 

ease ; and with a measure of corn, beans, or 
peas, or the smaller grains, he may count on 
for hours, if he shall choose, and renew the op- 
eration day after day. And why should he 
not, if there be time and inducement ? He may 
as well do this at home as many other quite 
idle things, or something at school called " ed- 
ucation," but which amounts to nothing at all 
toward such end. Every grain he touches is 
an individual object ; it is a unit ; it is as dis- 
tinct and observable as if it were a mountain : 
it goes to make up a sum which is denominated 
a thousand or a million. Now just let a child, 
of adequate age and ability, enumerate palpa- 
ble, individual substances in this way, and he 
will proceed, not vaguely and confusedly, but 
clearly, definitely, and with a perfect intelli- 
gence, to almost any amount of numbers, piled 
up, in idea, one upon another. Then, when he 
shall come to the examples of the text-books at 
school, what otherwise would be empty abstrac- 
tions will to imagination cover and contain, as 
it were, like clothing, substantial and definite 
forms. He will have a distinct idea of numer- 
ical quantities, such as will be of invaluable 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 87 

Power of concentration and of individuality improved. 

service in the higher mathematical regions, 
where, as things have been, learners too often 
grope in a dark and cold misty expanse. 

POWER OF CONCENTRATION AND OF INDIVID- 
UALITY IMPROVED. 

Still other benefits from our enumerative ex- 
ercise may be adduced. It affords opportunity 
for concentrating attention. It would have the 
effect to bring a naturally unsteady and wan- 
dering mind to act for a time continuously in 
a specific direction. This is no small matter in 
education, and also in the practical affairs of life. 

Again : the act of counting one by one nec- 
essarily develops, more or less, the individual- 
izing faculty. An object must be apprehended 
as a distinct unit: it is individualized. Per- 
haps, indeed, this is the best method possible 
of developing the central and leading perceptive 
power. The occasion would be of special im- 
portance to a child whose individuality might 
be naturally weak, as is often the case. Such 
a person, in passing along a village street, would 
have a vague idea of houses, and this would be 
all ; but if he was set to counting the houses, 



88 THE CULTURE OF THE 



Power of concentration and of individuality improved. 

each one would come, at least momentarily, into 
distinct notice, and in some degree, also, its 
concomitant circumstances. Or, supposing you 
take such a child to a store, you might suggest 
to him to count, while you are doing an errand, 
all the kinds of things he might see on the 
counter, shelves, or any where else, without be- 
ing obtrusive beyond propriety. Then, after- 
ward, let him give you his account, and you 
will find that his store- visit has been quite an 
instructive occasion. Still farther, the subor- 
dinate observing faculties would be called into 
exercise more or less in connection with indi- 
viduality. Of course, as each object is enu- 
merated and noticed, its form, size, color, place, 
etc., would be also in some degree observed. 
Thus we perceive how a simple operation, which 
at home is carried scarcely beyond thumbs and 
fingers except in abstract words, and which is 
pursued at school probably never beyond the 
numerical balls, may be made the means of 
large, various, and most profitable discipline. 

It is hoped that enough has been said to 
show clearly that simple countiog is no unim- 
portant item in intellectual discipline. Let it 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 89 

Business arithmetic. 

not, then, be neglected because it is not in- 
cluded, to the extent indicated, in the custom- 
ary educational programme, or because there 
is no precedent for it in ordinary experience. 

BUSINESS ARITHMETIC. 

In the young learner's first arithmetical ex- 
ercise, enumeration, the importance of having 
things to accompany words must be most evi- 
dent to the reader. But, furthermore, the same 
will hold true of other numerical operations. 
The purpose of the ordinary arithmetical edu- 
cation is to prepare the student for the busi- 
ness of adult life. The more, therefore, that 
numbers and figures directly pertain to real 
substances and to actual transactions, the more 
immediate and practical will be their bearing 
on future exigencies. Could exercises in addi- 
tion, subtraction, multiplication, division, etc., 
directly concern commodities, and could they, 
moreover, be performed right in the midst of 
things, there would be a reality and an inter- 
est which could not be felt at the distance of 
the school, and especially in such abstract ex- 
amples as generally make the lessons of the 



90 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Business arithmetic. 

book. It is a common remark with business- 
men that they did not understand arithmetic, 
after all the time spent on it at school, till they 
had occasion to use it in their own actual af- 
fairs. The reason of this is very plain. In 
their business there are certain material sub- 
stances. If these are not at the moment with- 
in sight, they are before the mind's eye : the 
numerical relations of these things are, there- 
fore, more distinctly apprehended. There is no 
blur of abstraction about them. A calculation 
must be made, and this with perfect accuracy : 
no guesswork can be allowed here. Hence 
there is a real and pressing demand on the 
science of number. The interests, the feelings, 
and the arithmetical operation all tend together 
toward one end. Something of immediate and 
practical importance is to be accomplished. 
No wonder, then, that men who have quite 
forgotten their school-book rules should now 
invent rules of their own, and, as is sometimes 
the case, even make short cross-cuts to accurate 
and provable conclusions. Such is the testi- 
mony of practical experience. 

Now, could instruction be transferred to the 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 91 

Family ciphering. 

store, the mechanic's shop, or the farm, there is 
no doubt that arithmetic would be understood 
and appreciated to a degree which can not 
possibly be realized at the school-room, as the 
science is there more generally communicated. 
The intellect may be, to some degree, disci- 
plined by the abstract lessons there : they are 
better than nothing. This discipline, however, 
falls far short of what would come from the 
demands of actual business. 

FAMILY CIPHERING. 

But the school must remain in its one as- 
signed location. Its exercises are likely to 
continue for some considerable time as before 
— abstract and unreal ; for it takes a long while 
to improve text-books, and, we may add, to im- 
prove some of the teachers who superintend 
their use. Now, parents, must your children 
be limited to school-book examples? Must 
they remain with this hazy, half- way knowl- 
edge of arithmetic, until they also shall come 
into the actual business of adult life, or at least 
that of apprenticeship ? By no means, if you 
will only take a little pains yourselves. You 



92 THE CULTUEE OF THE 

Family ciphering. 

have had your own school-days, and have gone 
through the abstractions as your children are 
doing now, and probably with no more profit. 
But, since then, you have been putting these 
dimly - apprehended abstractions to concrete 
and positive use. Perhaps you have been in- 
venting rules and methods of your own. At 
any rate, you can apply number and figure to 
visible and palpable commodities, to all the in- 
tents and purposes of livelihood and accumula- 
tion. Now it is just such an application which 
your own children need at this very moment, 
and which most probably they can not have, 
except in an imperfect degree, at school. Why, 
then, shall they not have it at home, and under 
the instruction of those whom they naturally 
love better than any one outside the family cir- 
cle ? All you have to do is to sit down among 
them in the leisure evening, and present the 
examples of your own business, just such as 
you have worked out in your own head, or on 
slate or paper, at your need. If you have been 
long in life, your memory must abound in in- 
stances, or you can invent numerous examples 
similar to what really occur. Depend upon it, 



OBSEEVING FACULTIES. 93 

Family ciphering. 

arithmetic will put on a new aspect to the learn- 
ers, all the brighter and all the more pleasant 
because it shines out from a light reflected by 
the most beloved and trusted friends. If you 
have not been called by your own affairs to 
make much use of numbers, and if your own 
school abstractions — figure - shadows, as they 
may be called — have been quite forgotten — 
have fallen even from shadows into absolute 
nothingness, then you can become a fellow- 
learner with your children. With this fresh 
school -knowledge, such as it is, they can per- 
haps instruct you, or at least be the occasion 
of your learning. You can, at least, mutually 
assist each other in real, lifelike performances 
in calculation. Your larger general experience 
and maturer judgment will, of course, take a 
respected lead. Home is the proper place for 
children in the evening; but then there must 
be work or study, or some sort of entertain- 
ment to make home agreeable and worth stay- 
ing in, preferably to any outside allurements. 
Suppose, now, for instance, you try, among oth- 
er things, this arithmetical experiment, and see 
if it does not, as the saying is, come to some- 
thing. 



94 THE CULTURE OF THE 



Explanation. 



EXPLANATION. 

By what has been said, let it not be inferred 
that any objection is intended to the more ab- 
stract exercises in numbers, in due process of 
an advanced education. This right beginning 
indicates really no hinderance to an ascent into 
the veriest sublime of mathematics. Indeed, 
the best assurance for the profoundest attain- 
ments in this science must be thoroughly dis- 
tinct ideas of material objects in their numer- 
ical relations at the outset. 

In conclusion, let me say that I have dwelt 
to such extent on this topic, because that, in 
the arithmetical branch of education, as in al- 
most every other, time, pains, and money are 
spent out of all proportion to profitable results. 
Boys and girls, instead of going straight on, 
step after step, in clear light and on a palpable 
path, learning the world and its things as they 
really are, wander, or rather, perhaps, are driv- 
en, over ground without any certain foothold 
— a sort of ghost-land. They are set to peer 
after and strike at flitting images, and not to 
lay hold on substantial knowledge, which stops 
and stays in the hand. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 95 



The power of eventuality. 



ACTION. 

THE POWER OF EVENTUALITY. 

It is one of the earliest perceptive functions 
to observe action, to see what things do, to 
watch curiously for what shall be done next. 
No. matter what it is that acts or simply moves ; 
the little eyes are intent. It may be the flit- 
ting of a feather or the flutter of a leaf If the 
object is a living one, like the kitten, the dog, 
the horse, or a bird, how delightedly the vary- 
ing movements are followed! The comings 
and goings of human beings still more strike 
attention, especially those of new forms and 
faces, which may happen along. 

Now the observing of movement requires a 
distinct operation of the intellect. Puss asleep 
and perfectly still in her corner is an object of 
notice altogether different from puss skipping 
across the room and hopping into some indul- 
gent lap. So different is the action of an indi- 
vidual object from the individual itself, that 
phrenologists affirm there must be a distinct 
faculty to take cognizance of it. Indeed, they 



96 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Differences in the observing power. 

think they have discovered a special organ for 
the purpose in the brain. This organ, matter 
and spirit together, is denominated Eventuali- 
ty. Whether the theory be true or not, it 
gives us a more distinct idea of the intellect in 
its relation both to actions in continuance and 
actions completed. Now this particular ob- 
serving faculty is of incalculable importance in 
the educational course of the young. It needs 
a systematic and thorough discipline as much 
as any other faculty. 

DIFFERENCES IN THE OBSERVING POWER. 

Parents and educators have scarcely thought 
of the difference between one person and an- 
other as to the ability of clearly perceiving ac- 
tions as they occur before the sight. Even in 
the same family, one organization will be found 
much superior to another as to this sharp-sight- 
edness at events. One particular child will be 
strangely and habitually unobservant of inci- 
dents around. Ask him if he saw such a thing 
done, and he knows nothing about it. It is as 
if he had been closed round with a thick mist, 
or been living in a dream-world of his own, or 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 97 

Differences of the observing power. 

had no eyes at all. His brother, much youn- 
ger, it may be, catches, at the same time, every 
passing circumstance as with a kind of appe- 
tite. He will look and learn at any rate. He 
will see incidents just in the order and connec- 
tion in which they took place, and he will nar- 
rate them with equal exactness. Now these 
differences will run on through life, and char- 
acterize the mental operations and acquire- 
ments, and perhaps the material fortunes of the 
two relatives. The originally strong power 
will become stronger through ever-new occa- 
sions, which it instinctively seizes on just for 
its own gratification. It will grow because it 
can not help growing. On the other hand, the 
defective perception will still continue weak 
and inadequate ; that is, unless it be developed 
by special training, or by peculiar circumstan- 
ces of business or necessity. 

The eventuality of the majority of people, 
though of normal and average strength, is so 
utterly neglected in specific education as but 
very imperfectly to perform its office. The 
world is full of action. Things inanimate are 
in movement, and produce effects. Living crea- 

G 



98 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Differences of the observing power. 

tures, while awake, are almost always in mo- 
tion, either with or without some definite pur- 
pose. So thick, so various are activities of one 
sort and another around the human being, that 
he can not possibly notice all of them. He ob- 
serves only a part, and such as attendant cir- 
cumstances may bring to sight. Even these 
he may not observe distinctly and accurately, 
because there seems no special need of it. He 
notices, if he notices at all, simply because he 
happens to look. As a general matter, there is 
no directness of attention caused by any pre- 
vious special discipline. There is, moreover, 
no sense of moral obligation to endeavor to 
know exactly what takes place as he looks. 
Of course, if there is no call for particularity, 
why should the child or the youth be particu- 
lar ? He will have no more reason for it than 
he would have in counting the trees in the 
orchard, or the stones in the wall, till he shall 
be put upon the exercise, as in the case of the 
arithmetical discipline which has been already 
advised. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 99 

Consequences of neglected culture. 

CONSEQUENCES OF NEGLECTED CULTURE. 

Thus it is that a faculty of incalculable prac- 
tical importance has failed in its office ; and, 
like all neglects and failures, this has been fol- 
lowed by more or less of retribution. To con- 
sider all the evils resulting from inaccurate ob- 
servation of facts, and careless statements about 
them, would be to take in all the world and all 
time since Adam's fall. Words and figures 
would fail of the amount. A few instances will 
give us some faint idea of the abounding evil. 

A careless young observer, giving an account 
of any disorder in a school-room, will make a 
statement quite different from what might have 
come from another witness with a clear-seeing 
eye. In consequence, some poor urchin may 
get an unjust punishment. The same careless 
describer of the offense, coming to be a man, or 
even before he arrives at this age, may be called 
to the witness-stand in a court of justice, and 
may unintentionally testify so wide of the truth 
as to what his eyes seemed to behold, that a 
fellow-man may innocently be subjected to fine, 
imprisonment, or even death on the gallows. 



100 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Consequences of neglected culture. 

Now consider all the millions of cases which, 
in all the world, have been brought before mag- 
istracies and juries, and there decided according 
to testimony, and we can have some idea of the 
thousands of unjust decisions — unjust because 
of the imperfect perceptions of really honest 
witnesses. 

Take human society as it exists every where 
around us. Suppose any city, town, village, 
or even little neighborhood: what misappre- 
hensions and misstatement of facts are continu- 
ally occurring ! ISTow and then some base scan- 
dal starts up, and comes to an enormous growth. 
In the majority of such cases the story is not 
an entire fabrication. There has been some in- 
cident as a groundwork. But the eyes of the 
first observer and reporter of that incident were 
so inadequate to their office that he gave only 
a part of the truth, or added a trifle to it. Thus 
the error first sprang into existence; then, pass- 
ing from lip to lip, it grew at length into a great 
fiction, having but little of the original verity 
about it. All this might happen through a 
mere intellectual defect, without the least inten- 
tion of departure from the exact truth. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 101 

Consequences of neglected culture. 

Again : the mistake might originate from the 
same incapacity in some one of the hearers of 
an affair. It must be understood that those 
persons who would naturally see a transaction 
but imperfectly, would also, from the same 
weakness of faculty, get imperfect notions in 
hearing an account of a transaction, even if 
that should be thoroughly correct. In the first 
place, they receive but a dim idea of an occur- 
rence as it comes to the ear; then they but 
faintly remember it. In a procedure embrac- 
ing a series of incidents, some one item or more 
may fall out of memory altogether. Conse- 
quently, their statement of the case will make 
quite a different matter. Thus, however ex- 
actly truthful a first observer and narrator may 
be, hearers will inadvertently receive only dim 
and altogether inadequate ideas of an affair. 
In this way, a chance auditor of some truthful 
narration may start a most egregious error on 
its irrepressible course through the lips and 
ears of a community. While there is but one 
original witness, and he entirely truthful, there 
may be at length a hundred hearers of his ac- 
count, many of whom will unintentionally re- 



102 THE CULTUEE OF THE 

Consequences of neglected culture. 

peat it with more or less variation from tlie 
facts as they come to their ears. No wonder 
that falsifications so numerously and so uni- 
versally prevail, when we consider this one sim- 
ple, unthought-of intellectual deficiency. 

Still, all the evil is not to be imputed to this 
source. There are very often moral perversi- 
ties through which such mistakes are magnified, 
and made far more operative for evil. A char- 
acteristic love for gossip, together with peculiar 
imaginative ability, will enlarge a trifle into 
wonderful magnitude, and diversify it with cu- 
rious forms. But, what is much worse, an un- 
charitable, censorious disposition will exagger- 
ate and blacken little innocent affairs into hein- 
ous sins or even enormous crimes. A bad spir- 
it, with a big imagination, will create monsters 
out of almost nothing. Thus it is that heart- 
burnings, broken friendships, and even bloody 
assaults and cruel murders have come to pass 
without number. Yery few, as society has 
been and now is, go through life without some 
personal experience of the sort. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 103 

Mistaken submission to the evil. What a new discipline would do. 

MISTAKEN" SUBMISSION TO THE EVIL. 

Such carelessness has there always beea in 
observation and statement, so uncommon is per- 
fect accuracy, that errors are taken as a mat- 
ter of course, and as what can not be helped. 
While an individual is under personal griev- 
ance, he will complain of careless eyes and 
truthless speech, but otherwise there is a singu- 
lar indifference to the evil. People do not ex- 
pect the truth. They are inured to falsehood, 
and let it go. Ko idea of improvement in the 
way of education has occurred probably to one 
in a thousand. Any moral obliquity, it is ex- 
pected, may possibly be corrected by Christian 
influences, but any thing farther is hardly con- 
sidered within the range of reform. Things are 
as they have been, and so must they continue 
to be, unless supernatural influences shall arrest 
their course and make a change. 

WHAT A NEW DISCIPLINE WOULD DO. 

It is rational to suppose that much improve- 
ment may be achieved by simply understand- 
ing the mental organism, and conforming the 



104 THE CULTURE OF THE 

What a new discipline would do. 

early discipline to its conditions. There is a 
great advantage in good intellectual habits, in- 
dependent of moral convictions and principles, 
if these latter influences on conduct can not be 
had. Let a child be trained, as a matter of dis- 
cipline, to see and describe things exactly as 
they are, and this habit of accuracy will con- 
tinue in after life, just as any other habit may 
continue, entirely separate from the thought of 
moral obligation. A person may be educated 
to extraordinary facility in arithmetical calcu- 
lations : no moral element enters into this pe- 
culiar ability. Just so it may be with the per- 
ception of events. Could all the families of a 
neighborhood be trained, from their earliest in- 
fancy upward, to see things precisely as they 
are, and to describe them just as they were 
seen ; and could the same discipline be carried 
into schools, and the pupils be trained to be as 
exact in observation and description as they 
are trained to be exact in performing arithmet- 
ical problems, there would be an unexampled 
improvement in conversational trustworthiness 
and in neighborly relations. There would be, 
as there is in other things, a sort of emulative 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 105 

How the discipline may begin. 

desire for accuracy, and perfect truthfulness to 
fact. A failure as to the precise fact would 
lower the intellectual standing and reputation. 
A faulty observer and teller of incidents would 
be considered as poorly educated, like a blun- 
dering reader or a bad speller. Could such a 
discipline be carried into every family and ev- 
ery school of the country, there would be a na- 
tional reform. A whole people would be edu- 
cated to see events accurately, as they might be 
educated to survey correctly and minutely the 
geographical features of their native town, as 
was recommended in the suggestions about 
place. They would be capacitated not only to 
observe actions in their progress, but to appre- 
hend the causes and the results of action to a 
degree beyond all former precedent. Could 
moral and religious motives be brought to bear 
on this point of culture as they ought, what won- 
ders of improvement might be accomplished ! 
But the all-important aid of the conscience and 
the heart will be hereafter considered. 

HOW THE DISCIPLINE MAY BEGIN. 

As soon as a child is able to tell his expe- 



106 THE CULTURE OF THE 

How the discipline may begin. 

riences, it may be easily perceived what native 
strength and precision of eventuality he may 
possess. Then according to his lack must be 
the particularity and assiduousness of his edu- 
cators. 

• Now the question comes, Where and how 
shall the necessary training be commenced? 
There need be no search after lessons ; for — to 
use several of the appropriate terms — motion, 
action, incidents, events, and facts are close by, 
and every where around. The first thing that 
happens may be an exercise of discipline, if the 
child is old enough to notice and give some ac- 
count of it. Still, there must be advantage in 
system ; and, for this reason, one subject will 
be preferable to another. 

Certain transactions are better suited to be- 
gin with than others, which might be good for 
a farther stage of progress. One of the ac- 
knowledged rules of education is to commence 
with what is best known or can be most easily 
known, and thence proceed to things more dif- 
ficult. The chief requisites are distinctness of 
perception and correctness in recital. It is im- 
portant that the several parts of a proceeding 



OBSERVINa FACULTIES. 107 

Household lessons. 

should be noticed according to their precise 
succession. Those operations are excellent for 
attention and questioning, at the outset, in 
which first one thing is done, then another, in 
necessary order. 

HOUSEHOLD LESSONS. 

The industrial concerns of a household are 
numerous and diverse : let them, by turns, be- 
come lessons for observation. No better in- 
stances can be presented to children than the 
goings-on around them in ordinary work. 
They are interested in what their friends do. 
The smiling aspect and kind tones of invitation 
will be all that is wanted to enlist their special 
attention to any movement, or series of move- 
ments, performed by their domestic friends. 

But let us illustrate. Take, for example, the 
setting of the table for dinner. There is, first, 
the drawing-out of the table to the proper po- 
sition; second, the lifting and fastening of the 
leaves ; then the spreading of the cloth, and so 
on, one performance after another, till the meal 
is ready, and the family are at knife and fork. 
Now let the child, as a matter of discipline, ex- 



108 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Household lessons. 

actly describe every process of the table -set- 
ting in its exact order. Let there be no mis- 
take in the sequences, as perfect accuracy in 
this particular respect is one of the benefits of 
the lesson. The same use may be made of 
other household duties in which there is a me- 
thodical routine. Of course, children, whether 
desired or not, usually notice such proceedings. 
These are among the occasions of that uncon- 
scious and gradual development of intellect 
which will go on without care or thought on 
the part of the little lookers or their friends. 
But, according to their native power of event- 
uality, they may either notice each particular 
of a transaction in its due order, or have but 
imperfect perceptions and confused ideas. The 
important point aimed at is accuracy in seeing 
and telling, as a settled characteristic ; an abil- 
ity which shall prevent no small harm, and do 
great good, in that future which depends so 
much on early-formed habits. Take mental 
constitutions as the average, and this perfect 
exactness of sight and speech can not be had 
without some special discipline. The practical 
advantages warrant all the pains which can 
possibly be given to the subject. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 109 

Manufacturing and agricultural lessons. 

MANUFACTURING LESSONS. 

Besides the various kinds of orderly work 
at home, the several divisions of skilled labor, 
the distinct and life-long occupations of people, 
will afford most valuable exercises in this sort 
of observation. 

First, take those more simple mechanical 
trades which are common in every country vil- 
lage or town, and are mainly carried on by 
hand. In each one of these there is an order- 
ly procedure : first one thing is done, then an- 
other, and so on through a course of work. 
Now let a child of adequate, age watch the 
processes, and afterward give an exact account. 
In due time, have him visit mills and factories, 
and trace their more complex operations, no- 
ticing how the several connected forces produce 
results. 

AGRICULTURAL LESSONS. 

Educational visits to the farm must certainly 
not be omitted. Its affairs are probably more 
numerous and diverse than those of any other 
separate productive employment. From the 



110 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Benefits. 

first touch of culture in the spring till all the 
harvests are gathered in, there is orderly pro- 
gressive work. Then, in the winter, there is 
the kindly care of animals in several daily 
processes. There are, besides, useful but less 
regular doings which come in between the rest. 
Now all these matters, judiciously presented, 
would be exceedingly interesting and instruct- 
ive to the fresh perceptions of the young. 
They should begin their agricultural observa- 
tions with the earliest movements in the 
spring. Let them notice every distinct kind 
of labor in all its items, and these in their or- 
derly and precise succession. Then an account 
should be required as perfectly exact as any 
prescribed recitation at school. 

BENEFITS. 

All industrial occupations might afford les- 
sons similar to those indicated above. It is not 
necessary to particularize any farther. Now 
it can not be doubted that this peculiar disci- 
pline would be of no inestimable advantage to 
the young as candidates for life's activities and 
uses. No descriptive books could equal, or 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. Ill 

What a father might do. 

make up for, this positive knowledge caught 
by the naked eye. 

One special and important benefit would be 
the obtaining of some considerable insight into 
the various trades and pursuits of men. The 
pupil would also learn something not only 
about methods of procedure, but about the ma- 
terials and implements used. What is, more- 
over, of much consequence, he would obtain 
that knowledge of different kinds of business 
which is really necessary to develop his own 
taste, and to form his judgment in respect to 
the choice of an employment for himself Still 
farther, he would eventually come to that un- 
derstanding of the various avocations of men 
which is quite necessary to form a just esti- 
mate of their respective and peculiar services. 
Indeed, such a knowledge would lead to that 
charity and kindliness which is so much need- 
ed, but is so often withheld. 

WHAT A FATHER MIGHT DO. 

It may be averred that, in this intelligent 
part of the country, most people have some 
general ideas of the different departments of 



112 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Nature's works and ways. 

industry. But why not possess a more thor- 
ough and systematic knowledge, when it can 
be so easily gained ? During the years usual- 
ly devoted to education, there might be ob- 
tained a quite extensive and comparatively in- 
timate acquaintance with the various pursuits 
of life, and this without much that would seem 
like a task. Nothing would be necessary but 
simply to take or make occasions. A father 
could scarcely better employ a little respite 
from business than to take his children, as a 
pleasant pastime, to places of various indus- 
trial activity. A small portion of the time 
now spent in school on studies unadapted to 
the pupil's age, but faintly understood and 
quickly forgotten, would suffice for the pur- 
pose. 

nature's v^orks and ways. 

Man's art and industry should not engage 
the whole attention. In the mean time, let 
children, from the earliest ability, observe the 
movements and processes of nature. If they 
are capable of admiring human inventions and 
their effects, they can be led to admire and 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 113 

Nature' s works and ways. 

study the wonderful machinery by which the 
Creator brings about results. Some will see 
and reflect considerably, and ask questions, 
and grow in knowledge with but little prompt- 
ing. It is not so with the majority. They 
soon become so accustomed to all regular phe- 
nomena that they cease to think much about 
them. As for the more covert processes, ex- 
cepting such as may unexpectedly startle their 
sight, they scarcely, by themselves alone, find 
them out. Whatever is going on continually 
in regular successions of movement, and which 
has been thus going on from the earliest re- 
membrance, is unheeded by most, simply be- 
cause of this very order and constancy. It is 
with people, as they grow gradually up, in re- 
spect to the mechanism of nature, as it is in re- 
spect to the household time-piece : they are so 
accustomed to its tick, tick, that they do not 
hear it ; and if they happen to catch a glimpse 
of the inner machinery, they have no curiosity 
to study a structure which, close by, has served 
their convenience so well and so long. 

These faculties, thus admirably fitted to ob- 
serve and know, should not become so dead- 

H 



114 THE CULTUEE OF THE 

Nature's works and ways. 

ened and useless. The infinite Designer and 
Maker not did so intend. The infant possess- 
or begins early and aright to use them. His 
innate instincts, almost as soon as he fairly gets 
his eyes open, prompt him to look and learn. 
How intently he gazes on the flickering flame 
or the waving tree! He is pleased with any 
sort of gentle motion. But these instincts 
should grow into earnest desires to look farther 
and farther, and to learn still more and more. 
All that is needed with most is easily -given 
direction and sympathy. At first the child 
simply observes movement, and has no thought 
beyond the impression on his sight. But this 
observation is the initiative step toward the 
whole philosophy of causes, effects, and uses. 
This one perceptive power, eventuality, holds 
the key, as it were, to all natural science. This 
science, in large degree, consists in understand- 
ing how the masses and elements of matter, 
and the organic forms of it, act on each other, 
and what are the ends designed. Of course, 
the action must first be known before it can be 
discerned whence it comes, or- to what it tends. 
What rounds, and ranges, and mazes of move- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 115 

Casual events. 

ment between the stupendous rolling and cir- 
cling of worlds and the leaping affinities of 
atoms! — an infinitude of agents and activities; 
millions of distinct organs, and offices, and op- 
erations, yet one connected and harmonious 
mechanism, moved every moment by one in- 
finite Power. Now, parent, shall all this be 
no more to your beloved child's curiosity than 
the ever-swinging pendulum or the ceaseless 
tick of the old convenient clock ? 

CASUAL EVENTS. 

Besides those processes which take place in 
regular routine, and which may be repeatedly 
observed by the learner, and, as it were, got by 
heart, there are other occurrences which are 
fortuitous and unexpected. Nothing before has 
been exactly like them, and nothing will follow 
exactly similar in the collocation of all the sev- 
eral objects and circumstances. Events of this 
sort are transpiring every moment. Mankind, 
exercising their own wills, are continually do- 
ing this and that, according to contingencies. 
It is such transactions, not distinctly observed, 
and affording no second opportunity for bet- 



116 THE CULTURE OF THE 

* Casual events. 

ter sight, which occasion those misstatements 
whence come innumerable difficulties and heart- 
burnings in society. Perfect accuracy in ob- 
serving and representing these is of surpassing 
importance. A habit of being truthful to facts 
should as early as possible be formed. To this 
end, no discipline can hardly be too persistent 
and thorough. 

Those unimportant incidents, ever new and 
various, which are continually happening with- 
in and around the home, present the most con- 
venient lessons to the little observer. Of course, 
it is not necessary that he shall get through all 
the methodical processes before alluded to, even 
those within the house, before he may be put 
upon these. Let it be an emphatic require- 
ment that, in his account, he shall omit no cir- 
cumstance, nor put one out of its exact order, 
any more than he did in the case of the table- 
setting, or any other fixed and regular proceed- 
ing. Thus a habit will be formed of distinct 
and consecutive observation. Besides, in this 
way, the young mind will be aided in acquir- 
ing that ability of concentrated attention which 
is so important to success in either study or 
business. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 117 

Influence upon literature. 

If those casual occurrences which are in 
themselves of no special importance shall be 
accurately noticed, those transactions which 
make their mark on a day or a week, or on the 
times, will, of course, secure the pupil's close 
and minute attention. There are those proceed- 
ings which may be not only a discipline, but 
a rich instruction. Among these are public 
movements and spectacles. Some of them grow 
out of prevalent tastes and customs, such as 
funeral and civic processions, ordinary military 
parades, and anniversary occasions. Others 
make a part of the history of the times, such 
as the marching of troops and the sailing of 
war- vessels, as in the present great national cri- 
sis. Hitherto no specific and circumstantial at- 
tention to such events has generally been re- 
quired as a part of education ; but they afford 
lessons of far greater value, if rightly conduct- 
ed, than are found in the naked, crumb-like 
facts of some historical text-books, which weari- 
ly occupy much time in seminaries of learning. 

INFLUENCE UPON LITERATURE. 

It is by no means intended to disparage the 



118 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Influence upon litei'ature. 

Study of well-written history. Indeed, intent 
and thorough observation, study of passing af- 
fairs, which has been recommended, will be a 
valuable preparative for the study of history in 
the school, or for the profitable perusal of it at 
any subsequent time. It will be a useful quali- 
fication for any sort of reading in which facts 
are comprised. A person who, from constitu- 
tional defect, takes but a slight or confused 
notice of present occurrences, will have but a 
slight remembrance of them. He will have a 
much more imperfect idea and remembrance of 
transactions which are presented only through 
language. The action-noting faculty, which has 
been well disciplined by what transpires imme- 
diately before it, will be more readily impressed 
by mere verbal communications. A narrated 
occurrence will thus be more clearly conceived 
of: it will not seem distant and dim, but, as it 
were, present and distinct, to this particular ob- 
serving power. The memory, moreover, will 
be proportionally retentive ; for each intellect- 
ual faculty is supposed to have a memory of its 
own, so that the eventuality which is keen to 
perceive is also strong to retain. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 119 

Influence upon literature. 

This exactness in the knowledge and pres- 
entation of -events, as a matter of culture and 
general habit, must necessarily have a most 
salutary effect upon the literature of the peo- 
ple, both that which they themselves make and 
that which is made for them. If conversation 
become more true to fact, epistolary communi- 
cations will share the improvement. Gossip 
by the pen will be reformed as well as gossip 
by the tongue. But, beyond this, historical 
compositions will be characterized by more 
thorough and satisfactory research. A public 
opinion which has been trained up to the mark 
of absolute truth must press upon the respon- 
sibility of writers, so that history, in future, 
shall not have to be rewritten, and the charac- 
ters of men rejudged, as heretofore, for the sake 
of right and justice. 

Again : with this better culture as to action, 
fictitious productions, which now make so large 
a part of the common reading, will be altogeth- 
er more faithful to nature. No small portion 
of the novels, and especially of the juvenile 
tales of the day, are poor representations of 
human life. Their authors seem to have beeq 



120 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Newspaper reform. 

living, from childhood up, in an imaginary 
world. They have not studied, as they should, 
nature and man in those multitudinous activi- 
ties by which traits and qualities are truly 
made known. Now this special culture of 
eventuality will supply fancy and invention 
with those truthful materials which have hith- 
erto been so much wanting. Thus the crea- 
tions of genius will become verisimilitudes of 
what has been actually experienced, or what 
at least is possible to man in view of the known 
principles of his being and his surrounding 
conditions. 

Coming generations will have this true liter- 
ature. When the whole people shall be train- 
ed to an exact observation of the real and 
moving world, then the few who shall write 
for the people will not fail of that best disci- 
pline and knowledge which comes through the 
primitive and surest use of the eyes. 

NEWSPAPER REFORM. 

One of the most important benefits to come 
from eventuality, as it should be, is the im- 
provement in newspaper literature. Every 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 121 

Newspaper reform. 

body in our country, who can read at all, reads 
the newspaper. It exerts a wider and deeper 
influence than any other emanation from the 
press. It does unmeasured good, but also 
much evil. A new appetite has been engen- 
dered, or rather a constitutional one intensified 
tenfold. It is a rabid hunger for something 
new ; and, besides this, for something as much 
as possible exciting. The newspaper would 
not be a newspaper unless it furnished this new 
thing. Hence a competition between journals. 
That goes off best which contains the keenest 
stimulative for the moment. The slightest ru- 
mor is caught up, and made the most of to-day ; 
but it may be utterly contradicted to-morrow. 
No matter; it serves its end; it satisfies the 
craving. Thus, if no other harm is done, 
thought is prevented from settling down on 
serious and really important subjects. The 
popular mind is unsettled, and is kept unset- 
tled and unstable. There is especially a bad 
effect upon the young, who, as they grow up, 
ought to be getting their faculties more and 
more, and continually, into a condition of 
strength and consolidation. For thorough-go- 



122 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Newspaper reform. 

ing, substantial reading, there is not time ; and 
as for deeper science and philosophy, they are 
scarcely thought of after leaving the school. 

Now, should there be an education from the 
earliest to a clear perception of passing inci- 
dents, and to a thoroughly accurate statement 
of them, the young would come up into life 
with a habit of accuracy, and, in consequence, 
with a taste for it. Vague observation, and 
more vague description, would be no part of 
their experience. For such readers, the news- 
paper item about somebody or something must 
have a ground of probability. If such things 
be found within a day or a week utterly false, 
the public taste and habit will say, " Away 
with them ! nothing of this !" Thus journals 
will compete with each other for exactness to 
the truth. A public man's character will have 
a safety not recently experienced. A distin- 
guished lady's delicacy will not be offended by 
some false rumor about her, as is now some- 
times the case, published from end to end of 
the land. Thousands of things, utterly unwar- 
ranted, will not be breathed into growth, as at 
present, by this hot breath of desire for the 
new and exciting. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 128 

Partisan calumnies checked. 

In this advanced age, when steam and tele- 
graph bring news from all quarters of the 
world, suflS-cient for every day's entertainment, 
falsehood will not be needed. Indeed, there 
will hardly be leisure to glance along the 
abundance of authenticated facts; and many 
of these, in this new and wonder -producing 
era, may be quite as attractive to curiosity as 
any catchpenny fabrications, or even the more 
innocent scintillations of genius. 

PARTISAN CALUMNIES CHECKED. 

But, above all, the bitter calumnies of polit- 
ical partisanship must receive a wholesome 
check, if they do not utterly come to an end. 
These are the worst concomitants of our elect- 
ive government. These are the abominations 
of the country. These too often thrust our 
best men prematurely into retirement, or pre- 
vent them from coming out of it at all. As 
things are now, character is mangled, murdered 
in political warfare. Could the people of this 
country be trained to be faithful to fact, a salu- 
tary influence must be exerted in this direction. 
A change for the better would be wrought, 



124 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Partisan calumnies checked. 

such as hitherto has never been known in pop- 
ular governments. If absolute fact be demand- 
ed, all electioneering misrepresentations must 
cease. That party which should resort to fal- 
sifications must succumb — must wear written 
on its very forehead Wroiig. Let a thorough 
examination into facts be the groundwork of 
political opinion, and the reason, the intelli- 
gence, the common sense of voters would bring 
an overwhelming majority to the side of the 
right and the best. The people would come 
to know who are their truly wise, good, and 
great men, and would give to them their confi- 
dence. The people would confide also in each 
other. Then, instead of democracy, deceived, 
cheated, degraded, and made a by-word through 
the monarchies of Europe, there would be a 
democracy like the clear shining of the sun 
after the rain, enlightening the eyes, and warm- 
ing the hearts of the common masses all over 
the world. It would be like a great luminary 
in the heavens, ascending toward its noon, it 
might be, but there to stand still, as the sun 
did of old, while the true and the faithful every 
where should become victorious and free. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 125 

Present state of our nation. 

PRESENT STATE OF OUR NATION. 

But such a state of things has not yet been, 
and many fear that it will not exist perhaps 
for ages. Our nation, at this moment, heaves 
and tosses like ocean in the storm ; yea, as with 
the more terrible earthquake, opening new 
chasms downward, shooting new volcanoes up- 
ward, even shaking the nations that are afar 
off, and perplexing monarchs on their thrones. 
And all this has come from the lies of selfish, 
wicked men. Old custom, the love of ease, of 
power, of wealth, and luxury, could not possi- 
bly have prevailed, had it not been for this 
diabolical " refuge of lies." Had the truth as 
to facts, nothing but the truth, been presented 
from the platform and the press for the last 
thirty years — had the people received the truth, 
and reflected it to each other just as the mil- 
lions of the summer dewdrops reflect the un- 
failing, benignant sun, the present fratricidal 
war could never have been. It would have 
been as utterly impossible as for hailstones and 
thunderbolts to have fallen from the cloudless 
sky on herb, and beast, and man below. 



126 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Present state of our nation. 

The demons of falsehood still divide the 
land. The Father of Lies himself hangs, as it 
were, invisibly over it, in all his hideous, heav- 
en-defying malignity, and scatters his own ar- 
rows of destruction into the ears and the un- 
derstandings, and down into the hearts of a 
credulous people. What the end will be, no 
one but the omniscient God, or foreseeing and 
truthful angels, can tell. Parents and teachers, 
such now is the state of our country ; and why 
is it so? why has it been so? Because the 
parents and teachers, your predecessors, gener- 
ation back behind generation, did not train the 
young to see the truth, to speak the truth, and 
to live the truth. It is because the educators 
themselves have been false : how, then, could 
they train their children and pupils to be 
true? 

Now, shall this state of things remain? Shall 
it be ages before we become a stable people, 
with a stable government and a stable pros- 
perity ? It all depends upon you, parents and 
teachers of this nation, whether we shall grow 
into safety, and realize the hopes of yearning 
millions the earth over, or not. Accept the 



OBSERVING FACULTIES, 127 

Discipline of the conscience. 

views which have been here imperfectly pre- 
sented as to training to the truth ; let them be 
adopted in the family, in the school, in the land 
throughout; and, with one addition in the ed- 
ucational plan, there will be, there must be, in- 
evitable success. 

DISCIPLINE OF THE CONSCIENCE. 

But this addition — the discipline of the con- 
science — is the most important matter of all. 
Without it there can be no assurance of steady 
progress and of final security. This is the cul- 
ture of the conscience side by side with the 
discipline of the observing intellect. Nothing 
can be more true, as all history proves, than 
that the human heart is deceitful above all 
things, and desperately wicked. Such is the 
selfishness of human nature — a selfishness act- 
ing from very infancy, and strengthening with 
the years, subjugating the intellect to its serv- 
ice — that the conscience must be awakened at 
the earliest, and set to its restraining work. 
All the solemn warnings of religion will be 
needed with some constitutions to make the 
tongue's statement true to the eye's witness- 



128 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Discipline of the conscience. 

ing. Parents, upon you is imposed, by the in- 
finitely True, the responsibihty of quickening 
the moral sense of your children to the surest 
guardianship over the tongue, and, indeed, over 
the feelings and motives which lie beneath the 
speech. Teach them that knowingly to devi- 
ate from exactness, even as to trivial incidents, 
is to be guilty of falsehood, and falsehood re- 
plete with danger ; for it prepares the way for 
more serious deviations, and thence more hein- 
ous obliquity. Impress upon them that what 
has once really taken place is fixed: it has 
been, it exists as a fact forever. However hu- 
man beings may misconceive it, take from it, 
or add to it, there it is, printed on the irrevers- 
ible page of the past; there it is, moreover, 
naked before the Omniscient Eye. Neither 
wishes, nor prejudices, nor passions, nor vol- 
umes of words can change it one tittle. In the 
process of time, and in the passing away of 
temporary motives and feelings, events may 
come to be seen in their true light. Then self- 
seekers and falsifiers will stand out exposed in 
the same light, and in their naked deformity. 
Train your children, therefore, to believe and 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 129 

Two beings who can not be escaped. 

to feel that they might as well struggle up, de- 
spite of gravitation, into the clouds for a hid- 
ing-place, as to struggle away, and forever keep 
away, from the fastness of fact and the search- 
ing severity of txuth. 

TWO BEINGS WHO CAN NOT BE ESCAPED. 

There are two beings from whom the un- 
truthful man can not conceal his guilt. One 
is himself. At the moment of its utterance he 
is conscious of the falsehood. Henceforth it 
is written on his memory that he has lied. He 
can no more wipe it out than he can wipe out 
the wrinkles on his brow above it, or shape 
into infantile openness the sinister expression 
of his face. There it is, registered on his mem- 
ory forever. It may sink away from the con- 
stant glance of his own thought, perhaps it 
may remain unseen for years; but it is not 
gone. The leaves of more recent experiences 
are but laid over it. Some time, with light- 
ning swiftness, these leaves may be flung back ; 
and tliere^ as in years long before, blazes out the 
record — falsifier^ liar. Teach your children, 
therefore, that, if the untruthful shall escape all 

I 



180 THE CULTUKE OF THE 

Time. 

the rest of the world, lie shall ever, ever be 
pursued and found by himself. 

The other being from whom the liar can not 
hide is that One of whom it is said in the sa- 
cred oracles, " He that planted the ear, shall he 
not hear ? He that formed the eye, shall he 
not see? Shall not God search this out? For 
his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he 
seeth all his goings. There is no darkness, 
nor shadow of death, where the workers of in- 
iquity may hide themselves. Hell and destruc- 
tion are before the Lord; how much more, 
then, the hearts of the children of men !" 



TIME. 

In close connection with action is another 
important matter of discipline. It regards the 
relation of time. Movement occupies more or 
less duration according to the space or dis- 
tance passed through, or according to the num- 
ber of motions, as in those indicated by the 
ticking of a time-piece or in the pulsations of 
the blood. It is supposed that there is a spe- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 181 

Time. 

cial faculty for the perception of time, as there 
is in the case of other qualities and relations 
in nature. There are those who can tell al- 
most any hour of the day or night without 
clock or watch. Such persons have a natu- 
rally keen perception of time, which has been 
increased by constant use. They are always 
to a moment punctual to their engagements. 
They keep nobody waiting ; that is, if their 
moral nature is as true as their one intellectual 
ability. Others have a character directly the 
reverse. Owing to a constitutional weakness, 
or the undeveloped condition of this faculty, 
they have but little consciousness of the pass- 
ing moments. In early life, they are behind 
at school, unless well prompted ; as they grow 
up, they are behindhand in their engagements, 
behind in their business, behind at public meet- 
ings. Are they on committees, or in any serv- 
ice associated with others — they are always 
tardy, and keep their fellow-officials in uneasy 
endurance. Perhaps, when they do arrive, 
they may consume much time in needless talk, 
through the same unconsciousness which made 
them late. 



132 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Time in talk. Public occasions. 

TIME IN TALK. 

Some persons are particularly unconscious 
of time in conversation. They will spend the 
whole space allotted to the call of a friend on 
some casual topic uninteresting and tedious to 
the hearer, who may wish to touch on subjects 
more accordant with his tastes, or on which he 
came especially to confer. Cases are not infre- 
quent in which speakers, who had been ap- 
pointed, together with others, to address an au- 
dience, have appropriated to themselves nearly 
the whole time of the occasion. An opening 
speech has been known to consume almost the 
whole evening. 

PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 

Again : how often are the movements of va- 
rious public occasions tediously delayed by a 
few persons, and, indeed, by some one individ- 
ual having the direction! So common are 
such delays that people hardly expect any 
thing better; yet they are obliged to observe 
the appointed hour, or they might possibly 
forego the profit of the occasion. Thus some- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 133 

Punctuality as to promises. 

times the precious hours of thousands are irre- 
trievably lost through the neglect of a few tar- 
dy ofifi-cials. If these thousands of lost hours 
were aggregated into one amount, and their 
worth to industry estimated, the waste would 
appear enormous. 

PUNCTUALITY AS TO PROMISES. 

There are other cases in which the pinch of 
punctuality is not sufficiently felt, and disap- 
pointment and inconvenience may annoy, and 
possibly much pecuniary loss be incurred. For 
instance, how often mechanics and other pro- 
ducers engage to furnish articles by a certain 
date, and then fail of accomplishment! In fact, 
through all the circles of business, promises as 
to time are frequently broken ; hence losses of 
money, or comfort at any rate, of good feeling, 
and perhaps of amicable relations. This is a 
matter of ordinary experience. The fact is, 
that many a man, in promising the completion 
of work at a certain day, has but a vague idea 
of the time necessary for the performance. He 
goes by guess. His judgment as to time and 
movement has not been cultivated. Perhaps 



134 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Disastrous lack of promptitude. 

he is constitutionally defective, and can meas- 
ure days and hours scarcely much better than 
the senseless clock with its machinery askew. 

DISASTROUS LACK OF PROMPTITUDE. 

In human affairs, there are crosses and losses 
innumerable and incalculable through lack of 
promptitude. At the first battle of Bull Eun, 
the long delay of one division in the morning's 
march was an incidental cause of that lament- 
able defeat. Had our army got into action as 
early as was intended in the commander's plan, 
a decisive victory would have probably been 
won several hours before those re-enforcements 
arrived which turned the scale in favor of the 
enemy. It was probably a miscalculation as 
to time on somebody's part which prevented 
the pontoon-bridges from reaching Fredericks- 
burg coincidently with the army, and thus de- 
laying Burnside's great movement and leading 
to ultimate defeat. History records numerous 
instances of similar disasters. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 135 

Early attention to the time-faculty. 

EARLY ATTENTION TO THE TIME-FACULTY. 

ISTow, as this defect as to time is often a con- 
stitutional deformity, it should be understood 
at the very outset of education, and be rem- 
edied by the most assiduous culture. It may 
be discovered, by a little attention, what the 
native capacity of children is in this respect. 
See whether they are prompt at school, church, 
or any other place, at the appointed moment. 
Note whether they seem to lose all idea of 
time in play or talk when some pressing duty 
is before them. Should there appear an un- 
consciousness of duration, then they must be 
watched, and trained accordingly. As a dis- 
ciplinary exercise, they may be put in many 
ways to the exact observation of time in the 
course of ordinary duty. In some affairs, cer- 
tain operations require a certain measurable 
period of time for their accomplishment. The 
usual routine of every day in household or 
farm matters is divided into several parts ap- 
pertaining to one thing and another. In the 
course of experience and habit, calculations are 
very readily made in respect to the quantity 



136 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Help from the time-piece. 

of time demanded by each, so that every thing 
may be attended to and finished in order. But 
the young generally need some special disci- 
pline before they can accurately adjust one 
thing to another in their engagements. Some 
require very much care for the purpose. If 
they should be neglected in this matter by the 
first parental educators, they would be likely 
to go through the whole subsequent life, con- 
fused themselves, and confusing others. Innu- 
merable people continue all their days in this 
unfortunate predicament, and just from the 
lack of forethought and discipline. 

HELP FROM THE TIME-PIECE. 

Accustom, therefore, your children to notice 
particularly the hours, the half hours, and even 
the minutes occupied in any regular work or 
duty. Let it be, however, insisted on that per- 
formance shall be thorough and without flut- 
tering haste. In this way they will learn how 
to portion out time to its several uses. They 
will be educated into a substantial and reliable 
judgment as to the seasons of regular duty. 

There are occasional transactions which also 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 137 

Measuring time by the sun. 

may well be made lessons. In doing errands 
at a store, or a neighbor's, or any where else, 
let the time of going and coming at ordinary 
speed be carefully noted. As children are 
fond of special exercises if they be made agree- 
able, let them guess how long it will take to 
walk or run a certain distance and back again, 
or to make a certain number of motions with 
the feet or hands in imitation of work, as in 
the Kinder -garten plays. Suppose any new 
work is to be undertaken : let there be guesses 
as to the time occupied. Indeed, no matter 
what the operation is, it will serve to discipline 
the young to mark time with precision, and to 
form habits of adjusting movements to move- 
ments with an economical accuracy, which shall 
be a lifelong benefit to themselves and to every 
body who has to do with them. 

MEASURING TIME BY THE SUN. 

It is a good plan, furthermore, to have chil- 
dren measure time by the place and the prog- 
ress of the sun. Let them guess the time of 
day by the sun's position in the sky, and then 
refer to the time-piece to see how near the pre- 



138 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Measuring time by the sun. 

cise moment they have hit. Let such an exer- 
cise be pursued till the hour of day, at any 
place of the sun, may be quite accurately de- 
termined. A similar course might be pursued 
in respect to the moon and the stars, for the 
sake of a more thorough education of the fac- 
ulty, and perhaps for occasional and valuable 
use in emergencies that might arise. Indeed, 
the first idea of time came from the regular 
movements of the heavenly bodies. Hence 
originated those divisions of duration which 
are named in the languages, and govern the 
doings of all the world. These phenomena of 
the heavens perpetually teach and remind man- 
kind of the importance of method or economy 
in the use of time. No lesson pertaining to 
life's practical affairs is inculcated on a grander 
scale than this. It is written on the expanse of 
the firmament. It is illustrated by revolving 
globes. Parents, shall this wisdom, so might- 
ily and momentously vouchsafed, be lost to 
your children because you fail to interpret it 
to their understandings and impress it on their 
hearts ? 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 139 

Order. A special faculty. 



E D E R. 

In the works of God there is a certain order, 
or methodical arrangement, which is best adapt- 
ed to the end for which they were made. Not 
only organic forms of matter, but the opera- 
tions by which they accomplish their uses, ex- 
hibit this perfect adaptation of one thing to 
another, and of means to ends. Thus they 
give an all -important lesson to man for his 
own works and ways. In human affairs, by 
a similar systematization, the greatest good is 
brought to pass. 

A SPECIAL FACULTY. 

It is supposed that there is a special mental 
faculty which takes cognizance of order. It 
gives to the individual the ability to notice 
and appreciate it in things around, and also 
the ability to do things, and keep things him- 
self, according to the same rule. There are 
sometimes wide differences between one per- 
son and another as to the native strength of 
this faculty. To be convinced of this, we 



140 THE CULTURE OF THE 

A special faculty. 

have but to recall our experiences with vari- 
ous people. One has a place for every thing, 
and keeps every thing in its own place. Such 
a one is thoroughly systematic in business. 
That thing is done first which in good judg- 
ment should come first. He knows when his 
work is completed. There are no hurried 
runnings or flurried huddlings to finish up 
what was supposed to be already finished. 
With him, " done" means done^ and is truly so. 
His anticipated leisure is not all cut up or cut 
short in the least by his own neglects. As 
far as depends on himself, he is always sure of 
time for pastime. Just like the sun that reg- 
ularly shines on him, he knows his exact 
path, and his exact place in that path, at every 
hour from morning until evening ; and then 
he knows when his day is done, as the sun 
knows his going down. 

How entirely different from this is the con- 
stitutional character and prevalent habits of 
another person ! Indeed, how many there are 
who, as to a systematic disposition of things, 
are about as much to be calculated on as the 
dust blown and tossed by the wind ! They 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 141 

How to discipline the faculty. 

can not calculate on themselves. They are 
disturbed by tendencies which have crept into 
their natures from some progenitor: so these 
tendencies impel them to and fro, up and down, 
evermore, because no educating hand came in 
good season to the rescue. 

Such being the contingencies of poor hu- 
man nature, they should be looked after with- 
out fail, and right early. The educator should 
understand the child's native mark of ability 
to appreciate order and conform to its laws. 
It can soon be seen whether much attention 
shall be required. Be the faculty stronger or 
weaker, it should be put to its use, and conse- 
quently under discipline, the same as the other 
intellectual powers. The parent's loving heart 
will be glad at an easy task ; and the same 
heart, together with a quickening conscience, 
will prompt to perseverance and insure success 
in the more difficult case. 

HOW TO DISCIPLINE THE FACULTY. 

Let us now consider what a child may be 
put upon quite early in the way of training the 
faculty of order. 



142 THE CULTURE OF THE 

How to discipline tlie faculty. 

I once knew a child, not more than nine 
months old, who was disturbed and uncom- 
fortable when some prominent article in the 
room, as a table, work-stand, or chair was not 
in its accustomed place. He would point with 
his finger, together with a significant — indeed, 
an imploring expression of his eye, to the thing 
in its irregular position. This child, no doubt, 
possessed the faculty of order in very strong 
constitutional development. But we may in- 
fer from the instance that children, on the 
average, may, in this respect, be quite early 
trained to strength and accuracy. A child 
who only creeps might be set to the use of 
pushing a displaced chair into its position in 
line with the other chairs. When he shall get 
fairly upon his feet, he might have a care, ac- 
cording to strength, that any article of furni- 
ture in the room, when out of place, should be 
put right. Such a charge would be not only 
a discipline in the plan of the parent, but an 
actual pleasure in the idea of a child. He 
wants to move ; he can not bear to be still : if 
he can do things to a certain end like others, 
and especially if he can gratify others by his 
activities, he is in his life's delight. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 143 

Care of playthings and clothes. 

CARE OF PLAYTHINGS AND CLOTHES. 

Accustom a child to take the best possible 
care of his own playthings — to have a special 
place for them when not in use. They should 
never be thrust confusedly down, and lie in a 
jumble, as so often happens, but be laid by 
with as much regard for convenient arrange- 
ment and neatness as any implement of adult 
industry should be put away, each where it 
belongs. This order about playthings will be 
an important preparation for order in the work- 
things of after life. 

Still farther: let children be educated to keep 
their own clothes in the best possible disposure 
in the drawer, chest, or closet, or wherever 
they may be placed. Let each article, how- 
ever small, have its own particular position, 
where, if need be, it might be found in the 
dark. 

Their clothes, on being taken off for the 
night, should be put in a certain definite and 
appropriate place ; not here at one time, and 
there at another, but in the best position for 
airing; and each article in such a manner as 



144 THE CULTUKE OF THE 

Household matters. 

to be most easily come at, even without light. 
Thus, in the case of fire and the necessity 
of quick escape, whether at home or abroad, 
whether at the house of a friend or at a strange 
hotel, the clothes could at least be snatched by 
the hand, if there should not be time to put 
them on. By an orderly habit of this sort, 
thousands in the conflagrations of the past 
would not have been driven almost naked 
from the burning into opposite elements, which 
diseased them perhaps for life by their inclem- 
encies. 

HOUSEHOLD MATTERS. 

When children shall be old enough to assist 
in household affairs or other duties, it is of 
much consequence that they should do every 
thing according to that exact succession of op- 
erations by which any kind of work can be 
most speedily and thoroughly accomplished. 
Days and weeks, and, in a long life, even 
months, are lost to some because the precise 
firstly, secondly, thirdly, etc., are not linked into 
habit. The buzzing, clattering, rumbling fac- 
tories of all sorts might instruct such wasters ; 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 145 

Boys. 

for here must be a certain beginning, a regular 
progress, and a definite and sure completion. 

Early and fixed habits of this sort will have 
great influence on their own industrial condi- 
tions and success in the far future. In the 
case of girls, the practice of order can not be 
too early commenced, and it should never be 
intermitted. They grow up right in the midst 
of those matters and things, the like of which 
is to make their own chief duty as wives and 
mothers. Laxity of order in girlhood, unre- 
formed then, will run very probably a disturb- 
ing force through all their housekeeping fu- 
ture. ' 

BOYS. 

In the case of boys, they may be put to ap- 
prenticeships in which there is a necessity for 
a certain order, as in mechanical trades and the 
use of machinery. They may be compelled 
to be systematic in their vocations to a certain 
extent, yet in other affairs they may fall into 
exceeding laxity and confusion. Whatever, 
therefore, they have to do, within or around 
the house, should be performed with regular- 

K 



146 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Neatness. 

ity and precision ; not only because it is best 
for the occasion, but because it will be a valu- 
able discipline toward tbeir future. 

NEATNESS. 

Personal neatness comes under tbis bead of 
order. This, with some constitutions, will be 
found to require much training and discipline. 
There are children who, from a native instinct, 
have a strong abhorrence of any soiling of 
their persons or clothes. They are early quite 
sensible of any lack of neatness about a room. 
Others are much the reverse. These seem to 
enjoy dirt and disorder as much as others do 
the best condition of things. These disorderly 
natures must be early looked to, and continu- 
ally watched as they go along up, that, through 
mere discipline, they may have that habit of 
neatness which will be necessary for the com- 
fort and satisfaction of others, if not for their 
own. Many a man, slovenly in his person 
and in his business, many an untidy woman 
and housekeeper, might have been blessed with 
at least average habits of neatness had they 
been properly disciplined in their early homes. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 147 

Neatness. 

Such children should be set particularly to 
put and keep things in order about a house or 
the surroundings. If any thing should be out 
of place, they, above all others, should be set 
to put it in place. If they must go, in case of 
need, up into the garret, down into the cellar, 
to some distant out-house, or away into a field, 
so much the better. The farther they shall 
have to run, the more impressive and profit- 
able the practical lesson. This sort of task 
should be made an imperative duty, to be con- 
tinued as long as is necessary. By this dis- 
cipline, such faulty organizations will be forced 
into the desirable habits, even against their 
own natures. 

There is a neatness in work, and in the way 
of doing a thousand little things, which many 
people, for the lack of early education, do not 
possess. They will drop and slop, spill and 
spatter, in every direction, simply because they 
are not trained to steadiness of hand, careful- 
ness of the foot, or quick observation of the 
eye. Pains and perseverance with such chil- 
dren will save much trouble under the parent- 
al roof, and will prevent them, doubtless, from 



148 THE CULTURE OF THE 

An appeal. 

innumerable discomforts and a thousand cha- 
grins in their own future home. But let it be 
especially remembered that example will be 
unspeakably more powerful than precept. The 
young will hardly practise order amid the sur- 
rounding confusion of their elders. The dis- 
order in which they have been brought up, 
and to which they have been from the earliest 
accustomed, is quite likely to be the earliest 
and habitual experience of their own rising 
families, and to become, possibly, the unprofit- 
able inheritance of generations still beyond. 

AN APPEAL. 

Parents ! for your own sakes in the dear 
home ; for the sake of loved children in their 
future abodes and vocations, and for the sake 
of that common usefulness which every one 
owes to his kind ; for the sake of some higher 
and wider good your son or daughter may be 
providentially called to accomplish, do not omit 
a duty comparatively so easy as the one now 
enjoined. Train your young families to that 
methodical arrangement, to that best order 
which is so necessary to give to art and indus- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 149 

An appeal. 

try, and to all virtuous endeavors, the highest 
success. By such a habit, work that must be 
done, however coarse, may be done in a way 
which is not only the shortest and the easiest, 
but which may have even something like a 
gracefulness about it. By this, the humblest 
task may have an adornment. 

The inferior animals, each after its kind, are 
orderly by instinct, and might instruct the in- 
telligences put over them in dominion. In- 
animate nature, close by and all around, teach- 
es those who labor in its midst the same les- 
son. How instructive are soil, water, air, heat, 
and light, as they work and build up bloom- 
ing and fruitful vegetation ! The same wis- 
dom comes from the far silent heavens: with 
a power mightier than any human speech, they 
proclaim the necessity of system. They show 
forth the beauty, the majesty, the divine per- 
fectness of order, while they declare the glory 
of God. 



150 THE CULTURE OF THE 



Conclusion. 



CONCLUSION. 

Other specific topics belong to the subject 
of these suggestions, and might properly have 
been considered. But this division of the vol- 
ume has been extended much beyond the orig- 
inal design. It is hoped that the patience of 
readers will hold out for some closing thoughts, 
which may still farther elucidate and confirm 
the theory presented. 

It is a well-known fact that the majority of 
mankind do not begin to study specifically 
and minutely the substances on which they 
are to operate through all their industrial lives 
until they get into apprenticeship or into ac- 
tual business. Then there must be disadvan- 
tage and loss, for a time, in proportion to the 
ignorance. In some cases, this ignorance con- 
tinues quite palpably and injuriously through 
all their vocational course. Now the training 
which has been indicated is a process of fitting- 
one, in a degree, for all sorts of business what- 
ever — a process begun with the very opening 
of the eyes and the putting forth of the hand. 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 151 

Conclusion. 

Indeed, Nature is continually striving to edu- 
cate the perceptive faculties, and would really 
double and quadruple their development and 
attainments if we would let her have her own 
methods, and lend her a helping hand amid the 
multitude of objects which might confuse the 
young learner's attention. 

There are certain individuals whose peculiar 
organization will make them sharp -sighted; 
will place things, and all their qualities, before 
them just as they are, in spite of the distract- 
ing circumstances of number, variety, and even 
disorder ; but these are comparatively few. 
The majority need help and showing, that the 
most may be made of the materials around. 
This must be evident from the exercises in 
objects and qualities which have been here 
proposed ; for how few, without advice, would 
pursue these matters in the best way, and to 
the most profitable extent ! Indeed, how has 
the whole world gone blundering along with 
the idea that education consists in words — 
words wide apart from the things to which 
they belong ! It has scarcely occurred to edu- 
cators generally that, in presenting things to 



152 THE CULTUEE OF THE 

How a good judgment comes. 

the learner, they must almost necessarily pre- 
sent words — nouns, adjectives, and verbs — 
which would stick to these things like their 
color in the daytime, or as their temperature 
does both day and night. n 

HOW A GOOD JUDGMENT COMES. 

There is a common saying about certain in- 
dividuals something like this : " He has an 
excellent judgment ; he is remarkable for his 
judgment." Now what is meant ? It is this: 
He knows what things are in their qualities 
and relations, and he knows what to do with 
them to the best possible advantage. Innu- 
merable instances in the various avocations of 
life might be adduced in illustration. How 
common it is for a citizen to be called on to 
appraise the goods of a neighboring estate, or, 
as a public officer, to make valuations of prop- 
erty for taxes ! In such cases, a practical knowl- 
edge of commodities is all-important. "We may 
take the most striking and instructive instances 
from these very times. Millions of money are 
lost to the nation through the ignorance of 
commissaries, quarter-masters, contractors, and 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 153 

Vivid recollections important. 

other providers for our armies, through the 
lack of that early and continued education of 
observing faculties which has now been ad- 
vised. If the loss, for the most part, comes from 
any other cause, it must be from a criminal dis- 
honesty, deserving the punishment of a peni- 
tentiary from a cheated country. 

VIVID RECOLLECTIONS IMPORTANT. 

Furthermore, a great deal of business is done 
in the way of trade without the actual presence 
and inspection of the commodity to be bought 
and sold. In this case, much is to be trusted to 
the honesty or honor of the seller. Neverthe- 
less, a great deal depends, on both sides, upon 
the actual knowledge of things previously ac- 
quired. Without such knowledge, the buy- 
er must take the seller's word; and without 
this knowledge, the seller himself may unin- 
tentionally mislead ; for in both of their mem- 
ories and conceptions there may lie a confused 
mass of things, designated by certain names. 
As for the absolute qualities, fitnesses, and val- 
ues, it may be the merest guess-work with 
both. Or, if but one of the parties is ignorant, 



154 THE CULTURE OF THE 

Distinguished men. 

he must go by guess, or trust implicitly to the 
integrity of the other. Now, let a thorough 
acquaintance with objects and their qualities 
be obtained, and there they lie in the memo- 
ry in all distinctness. There is no confusion. 
The mind's eye sees similar commodities in the 
distant ship or warehouse, or any where else, 
about as clearly as the physical eye would see 
them lying beneath the face. The memory, 
as a general rule, performs its office well or ill 
just in proportion as the original perceptions 
are disciplined and developed ; so that, in a 
large portion of business transactions, what is 
good judgment depends on distinct and accu- 
rate recollections. 

DISTINGUISHED MEN. 

The histories of many distinguished persons 
show that a culture quite independent of pre- 
scribed educational forms made them useful 
and eminent. Among the extraordinary men 
of our own country are those whose literary 
advantages were exceedingly limited. They 
simply exercised their naked faculties on what- 
ever came before them, or lay in any provi- 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 155 

Distinguished men. 

dential line of duty. They might have had 
some one power, like individuality or eventu- 
ality, in uncommon strength. This, spontane- 
ously leading the way, might have brought 
concomitant powers into action and increasing 
ability. All the faculties were employed upon 
the objects, the events, the realities of the pres- 
ent world and state of things, while their priv- 
ileged contemporaries were engaged on ab- 
stract books and chapters, sentences and words. 
Though these students of real life might be 
quite inaccurate in the nice uses of language, 
yet they obtained the weightier matters of a 
useful education. Such men, nevertheless, gen- 
erally possess an adequate ability at expres- 
sion, as far as it is necessary simply to convey 
their own ideas. Indeed, these observers and 
doers have often a remarkable facility of 
speech. This comes from the very nature of 
their education. They somehow pick up words 
appropriate to all the things, qualities, relations, 
actions, and transactions within their notice, 
and those words are presented naturally and 
easily with the subjects to which they belong. 
If there be any defect at all, it is that of some 



156 THE CULTUKE OF THE 

Books. 

little point which they might have rectified 
themselves, as many do, by a strenuous and 
determined self-discipline. The strongest men 
in our nation, the centres of momentous circles 
of affairs, may be excelled by school-girls of 
fifteen as to verbal and grammatical niceties. 
The ability adequate to the presidency of the 
nation or to a cabinet secretaryship does not 
depend on verbalities obtained at school or col- 
lege, but on an acquaintance with things, and 
actions, and principles — a knowledge of indi- 
vidual, social, municipal, civil, military, nation- 
al, and international realities. Washington's 
success at the head of armies and administra- 
tions was the result of that sound judgment 
which had been matured amid present sub- 
stances, passing events, and pressing emergen- 
cies. 

BOOKS. 

Let it not be supposed, by what precedes, 
that an unwarrantable discarding of books is 
advised. It is simply meant that books shall 
not come into use so early, so numerously, and 
so unintermittedly as to stifle and dwarf the 



OBSERVING FACULTIES. 157 

Books. 

faculties instead of aiding to strengthen them. 
The distinguished men alluded to improved 
themselves by reading as they had opportuni- 
ty; and, in one respect, they read with a pe- 
culiar advantage. Their preliminary experi- 
ence with the world's naked realities enabled 
them to take hold of language with a strong, 
effective grasp, as if words were palpable han- 
dles to the meanings underneath. They la- 
bored, however, under many and great disad- 
vantages. Their improvement came without 
system — now and then — here a little, and there 
a little. 

With our present command of means, we 
should seek for our children that education 
which begins exactly in the right place and at 
the right time ; which proceeds also in the best 
order, and in those directions, and to that ex- 
tent, which shall make the largest and fullest 
measure of good. 

Dear fellow - educators ! with what gentle 
touches of nature's elements, as with his own 
tender fingers, does the infinite Parent awaken 
his immortal offspring to consciousness and 
thought! Why shall we not follow these di- 



158 THE OBSERVING FACULTIES. 

Books. 

vine intimations? Be assured that thej run, 
with unbroken continuance, into grand rules 
of development and great infallible signs along 
the way of everlasting progress. 



A LETTER FROM THE AGENT OF THE MASSA- 
CHUSETTS BOARD OF EDUCATION. 



" Rev. Wakeen Bueton : 

"My deae Sie, — Your hints on ' Object-teach- 
ing' will accomplish much good, if they lead par- 
ents to the early and proper discipline of the 
observing faculties of their children. So far as 
relates to intellectual training, I heartily concur 
in the sentiment of Ruskin, ' The more I think of 
it, I find this conclusion more impressed upon me, 
that the greatest thing a human soul ever does in 
this world is to see something, and tell what it 
saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk 
to one who thinks, but thousands can think to 
one who can see.'' 

" The importance and methods of ' Object- 
teaching' have been a frequent topic of my lec- 
tures at teachers' institutes and normal schools 
for more than six years. The system is gradual- 
ly working its way into our schools, and, when in 
skillful hands, with the happiest results. I have 
spent several weeks during the last year in visit- 
ing the best ' object-schools' in the country, espe- 
cially in New York, Albany, New Britain, Conn., 



160 A LETTER FROM THE AGENT OF THE 

Toronto, C. W., and Oswego, N. Y. This system 
has been more fully and successfully applied in 
the schools of the latter place than any where 
else in this country. As a result, the primary 
schools of Oswego, which a few years since were 
in a low condition, have been raised to a degree 
of excellence probably not surpassed, if equaled, 
in this country. I visited all the schools of the 
city, with a single exception, in order to observe 
the working of the system under a great variety 
of circumstances, and with all classes of children, 
the rich and the poor, Germans, French, Irish, 
and Scotch, as well as Americans. So celebrated 
have these schools become, that Oswego is now a 
sort of Mecca for educators from nearly all the 
loyal states. During a visit of less than two 
weeks in that city, I observed representatives 
present from several distant states, including 
teachers, committees, and superintendents. This, 
I was told, was but the usual number of visitors 
from abroad. While I should dissent from some 
views and methods there adopted, the system, as 
a whole, is, in my judgment, practical, philosoph- 
ical, and admirably adapted to young children. 

" But this drill ought to begin long before the 
school age. The parent should daily give train- 
ing-lessons in common things. I value this book 
as one designed and fitted to make parents ' ob- 
ject-teachers ;' to convince them that the facts 



MASSACHUSETTS BOARD OF EDUCATION. 161 

and objects surrounding the child in e very-day 
life should be the earliest and most effective in- 
struments in developing his powers, and that thus 
habits of close, accurate, and exhaustive observa- 
tion should be early formed. 

" BlEDSEY G. NOETHEOP, 

^^ Agent Mass. Board of Education.''* 

L 



NOTE. 



That more inviting words might greet readers at the open- 
ing of the book, this preface-like explanation is placed at the 
end. Many years ago, the present writer, in lecturing on 
early intellectual culture, together with moral and religious 
education, earnestly urged the discipline of the observing 
faculties. He then had not the remotest idea that this disci- 
pline, as an indispensable requisite, would be so long neg- 
lected ; for it was at that time practiced in European schools, 
and advocated also by eminent writers in our own country. 
More than twenty years, however, have elapsed since his 
first humble efforts and sanguine expectations, and yet but 
little progress comparatively has been made in this direc- 
tion. In reflecting on this great educational deficiency, it 
came forcibly to mind that a much-needed help might be 
rendered to the family and the school by publishing some- 
thing similar to his former utterances. The lectures alluded 
to were mostly extemporaneous. By the aid, however, of a 
single written passage which makes a few of the first pages, 
together with some brief notes, they have been substantially 
recalled to memory, and, with the interspersion of fresh mat- 
ter, they constitute the body of this work. The original ex- 
temporaneous style in a degree ran into the composition. 
This will account for occasional looseness of construction 
and every-day phraseology, which it is hoped will be rather 
agreeable than otherwise to the majority of readers. 

W. B. 



OBJECT TEACHING, 



AND THE 



CULTURE OF THE PERCEPTIVE POWERS. 



From the American Literary Gazette and Publishers' 
Circular, September 15th, 1864. 

" There is no royal road to learning ;" but nei- 
ther is it necessary that the acquisition of knowl- 
edge should be made hateful to youth. The young 
mind is ready enough to receive information ; it 
craves facts, but it requires them to be in a nutri- 
tive and digestible shape. All children ask ques- 
tions. Some parents endeavor, with more or less 
success, to satisfy these inquiries ; others turn the 
inquirers over to the school-master, holding it to 
be his duty to attend to the brains, and the pa- 
rents' to care merely for the bodies of their chil- 
dren. Yet others discourage the questioners. 
The school-master, unless he be a man of genius, 
is apt to furnish words and phrases, where the 
child wants facts and ideas; therefore schools 
are so often hateful and unprofitable to the most 
intelligent of the children, and men are found to 



166 OBJECT TEACHING — THE CULTURE 

declare that in their boyhood they learned more 
out of than in school hours. 

Within a few years an important improvement 
has obtained in this country in the theory of edu- 
cation. Intelligent and thoughtful teachers ob- 
served the pleasure which all children take in the 
observation of natural objects; they noticed that, 
while spelling and reading are a weariness, the 
young learners never tired of studying the varied 
and interesting objects of nature which surround 
them. "Suppose we should attempt to answer 
these many questions of the children?" they said. 
" Suppose that, instead of teaching them to read 
in dry books, conveying no useful or interesting in- 
formation, we should provide them lessons which 
should gratify their desire to comprehend the na- 
ture and fix in their minds the shajoe and use of 
the various natural objects which so excite their 
curiosity ?" 

Out of this suggestion has arisen quite a school 
literature — a series of works of remarkable merit, 
intended to help parents and teachers to answer, 
instead of repressing, the inquiries of the children, 
and thus to foster and develop, instead of discour- 
aging, the burning desire for real knowledge. 

The system of tuition which has thus grown up 
is rightly called "Object Teaching." It aims to 
satisfy the craving of the child or youth for prac- 
tical information ; it recognizes the important fact 



OF THE PERCEPTIVE POWERS. 167 

that children are the most practical of beings, who 
refuse phrases, and demand constantly /ac^s. 

"Object Teaching" did not originate in this 
country ; it has been practiced in Europe in the 
best schools for many years ; but the most com- 
plete literary aids have been furnished by Ameri- 
can teachers and authors, and this from the rea- 
son that while common school education is uni- 
versal in the United States, the great mass of our 
youth must turn early to trades and business pur- 
suits, and have no time, after they leave school, 
for the study of text-books. 

The principle of "Object Teaching" is, there- 
fore, peculiarly and admirably adapted to the prac- 
tical, common -sense character of the American 
mind. It has been seized upon with avidity by 
parents and teachers ; and its success is exempli- 
fied in the number of books which have been re- 
cently published, either directly relating to the 
subject, or involving the use of its principles. 
Sheldon in his " Manual of Elementary Instruc- 
tion" and his "Model Lessons on Objects," 
Wells in his " Graded Schools," and " Lilien- 
THAL and Welch in their "Object Lessons," and 
several other writers, have endeavored to help 
the teacher to correct notions of " Object Teach- 
ing." But among the series of works bearing 
upon the subject, those of Marcius Willson, E. A. 
Calkins, and Worthington Hooker merit special 



168 OBJECT TEACHING — THE CULTURE 

mention. These works, published by Messrs. Har- 
per & Brothers, and got up with great care and 
at a heavy cost, are furnished with many hundreds 
of wood engravings, executed in the best style of 
the art, and especially for the books in which they 
appear ; they are admirably suited to the use of 
parents as well as teachers, and they are gradu- 
ated for the instruction of children of all ages. 

Dr. Hooker remarks in the preface to one of 
his excellent series, the " Child's Book of Nature," 
that "the inquisitive observation of children is 
commonly repressed instead of being encouraged 
and guided. The chief reason for this unnatural 
course is, that parents and teachers are not in pos- 
session of the information which is needed for the 
guidance of children in the observation of Nature. 
They have not themselves been taught aright, and 
so they are not able to lead others aright. In 
their own education the observation of Nature 
has been almost entirely excluded, and they are 
therefore unprepared to teach a child in regard 
to the simplest natural phenomena." He might 
justly have added that they have not even been 
taught to observe. Most men see without per- 
ceiving, excepting in the case of those objects 
with which they are most intimately connected 
by business pursuits. Their children see more of 
all objects about them than their parents. How 
should the latter be able to guide and instruct 



OF THE PERCEPTIVE POWERS. 169 

this faculty of minute and intelligent observation, 
when they have themselves lost it ? 

Now the excellence of these works of Hooker, 
Willson, and Calkins, and of others of the class, 
consists in this, that they suggest to parents and 
teachers how to observe natural objects, how to 
call the attention of children to their quaUties and 
parts, how to explain them, or cause them to ex- 
plain themselves. They make teaching what it 
ought to be, a pleasant pastime, rather than what 
it too often is, the hopeless drudgery of a drill- 
master. This is especially true of the two "Man- 
uals of Instruction in Object Lessons," by Pro- 
fessors Willson and Calkins, works which may be 
regarded as quite a boon to the anxious mother 
and to the conscientious teacher. 

Dr. Hooker's series, beginning with the now 
well-known and well-approved " Child's Book of 
Nature," and including a "Natural History," a 
" First Book in Chemistry," a Chemistry for more 
advanced pupils, and a " Natural Philosoi^hy," 
and soon to be enriched by the addition of a 
carefully prepared text-book of "Geology and 
Mineralogy" — all fully and carefully illustrated — 
completes a library of School and Family Text- 
books which is without a rival. In Dr. Hook- 
er's, as in the others, the labors of the teacher or 
parent are lightened by judicious helps, hints, and 
suggestions ; the instruction is conveyed in fa- 



170 OBJECT TEACHING, ETC 



miliar language, and the aim is to satisfy the in- 
telligent cm'iosity of the child or youth, and teach 
him to observe correctly and minutely, and en- 
courage him to investigate the mysteries which 
surround him. With the help of these books, 
question - asking children need no longer be a 
"bore" and "bother," and parents as well as 
teachers will find it an easy pleasure to gratify 
and encourage the questioners, whom now they 
too often repress. 







BOOKS FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES 



PUBLISHED BY 



HARPER & BROTHERS, Franklin Square, New York. 



„ Haepee & Beothkes tvilL send any of the following Works by 
Mail^ postage prepaid^ to any part of the United States^ on receipt 
of the Price. 

For a full Descriptive List of Books suitable for Schools and Colleges^ 
see Haepee' 8 Catalogue and Teade List, ivhich may be obtained gra- 
tuitously^ on application to the Publishers personally^ or by letter., en- 
closing Five Cents. 



Alford's Greek Testament. For the Use of Theolog- 
ical students and Ministers. Vol. I., containing the Four Gospels. 8vo, 
Cloth, $6 00. 

Andrews's Latin-English Lexicon, founded on the 

larger Gennan-Latin Lexicon of Dr. Wm. Fbeund. Royal 8vo, Sheep, 
$T50. 

Abercrombie on the Intellectual Powers. With 

Questions. 18mo, 75 cents. 

Abercrombie on the Philosophy of the Moral 

Feelings, With Questions. ISmo, 75 cents. 

Alison on Taste. Edited for Schools. By Abraham 
Mills. 12mo, Cloth, $1 25. 

Anthon's Latin Lessons. Latin Grammar, Part I. 

12mo, Sheep, $1 25. 

Anthon's Latin Prose Composition. Latin Gram- 
mar, Part II. 12mo, Sheep, $1 25. 

A Key to Latin Composition may be obtained by Teachers. 12mo, 
Half Sheep, 75 cents. 

Anthon's Zumpt's Latin Grammar. By Leonard 

ScHMiTz, Ph. D. 12rao, Sheep, $1 25. 



Books for /Schools and Colleges. 



Anthon's Zumpt's Latin Grammar Abridged. 12mo, 

Sheep, $1 00. 

Anthon's Latin Versification. In a Series of Pro- 
gressive Exercises, including Specimens of Translation from the English 
and German Poetry into Latin Verse. 12mo, iSheep, $1 25. 

A Key to Latin Versification may be obtained by Teachers. 12mo, 
Half Sheep, 75 cents. 

Anthon's Caesar. With English Notes, Plans of Bat- 
tles, Sieges, &c., and Historical, Geographical, and Archaeological In- 
dexes. Maps, Plans, Portrait, &c. 12mo, Sheep, $1 50. 

Anthon's Latin Prosody and Metre, 12mo, Sheep, 

$125. 

Anthon's Slneid of Virgil. With English Notes, a 
Metrical Clavis, and a Historical, Geographical, and Mythological Index, 
Portrait and many Illustrations. 12mo, Sheep, $1 75. 

Anthon's Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil. With 

English Notes and a Metrical Index. 12mo, Sheep, $1 75. 

Anthon's Sallust. Sallust's Jugurthine War and Con- 
spiracy of Catiline. With an English Commentary, and Geographical 
and Historical Indexes. Portrait. 12mo, Sheep, $1 25. 

Anthon's Horace, With English Notes. A new Edi- 
tion, corrected and enlarged, with Excursions relative to the Vines and 
Vineyards of the Ancients : a Life of Horace, a Biographical Sketch of 
Maecenas, a Metrical Clavis, &c. 12mo, Sheep, $1 75. 

Anthon's Cicero's Select Orations. With Enghsh 

Notes, and Historical, Geographical, and Legal Indexes. Portrait. 12mo, 
Sheep, $1 50. 

Anthon's Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. With 

English Notes. 12mo, Sheep, $1 50. 

Anthon's Cicero de Senectute, &c. The De Se- 

nectiite, De Amicitia, Paradoxa, and Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, and 
the Life of Atticus, by Cornelius Nepos. With Engli&h Notes. 12mo, 
Sheep, $1 50. 

Anthon's Cicero de Officiis. With Marginal Analy- 
sis and an English Commentary. 12mo, Sheep, $1 50. 



BooJcs for Schools and Colleges. 3 

Anthon's Tacitus. The Germania and Agiicola, and 
also Selections from the Annals of Tacitus. With English Notes. 12mo, 
Sheep, $1 50. 

Anthon's Cornelius Nepos. Cornelii Nepotis Vitse 

Imperatorum. With English Notes, &c. 12mo, Sheep, $1 50. 

Anthon's Juvenal. The Satires of Juvenal and Per- 

sius. With English Notes, Portrait. 12mo, Sheep, $1 50. 

Anthon's First Greek Lessons. 12mo, Sheep, 

$125. 

Anthon's Greek Composition. Greek Lessons, Part 
II. 12mo, Sheep, $1 25. 

Anthon's Greek Grammar. For the Use of Schools 

and Colleges. 12mo, Sheep, $1 25. 

Anthon's New Greek Grammar. From the Ger- 
man of Kilhner, Matthise, Buttman, Rost, and Thiersch ; to which are 
appended Remarks on the Pronunciation of the Greek Language, and 
Chronological Tables explanatory of the Same. 12mo, Sheep, $1 50. 

Anthon's Greek Prosody and Metre. With the 

Choral Scanning of the Prometheus Vinctus of ^schylus, and CEdipus 
Tyrannis of Sophocles ; to which are appended Remarks on the Indo-Ger- 
manic Analogies. 12mo, Sheep, $1 25. 

Anthon's Jacobs's Greek Reader, principally from 

the German Work of Frederic Jacobs. With English Notes, a Metrical 
Index to Homer and Anacreon, and a copious Lexicon. 12mo, Sheepi 
$150. 

Anthon's Xenophon's Anabasis. With English 

Notes, a Map, and a Plan of the Battle of Cunaxa. 12mo, Sheep, $1 50. 

Anthon's Xenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates. 

With English Notes, the Prolegomena of Kiihner, Wigger's Life of Soc- 
rates, &c., &c. 12mo, Sheep extra, $1 50. 

Anthon's Manual of Greek Antiquities. Numer- 
ous Illustrations. 12mo, Sheep, $1 25. 

Anthon's Manual of Roman Antiquities, &c. 

Numeroug Illustrations. 12mo, Sheep extra, $1 25. 



Books for Schools and Colleges. 



Anthon's Homer. The First Six Books of Homer's 
Iliad, English Notes, a Metrical Index, and Homeric Glossary. Portrait. 
12mo, Sheep extra, $1 75. 

Anthon's Manual of Greek Literature. 12mo, 

Sheep extra, $1 50. 

Anthon's Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman 

Antiquities, from the best Authorities, and embodying all the recent 
Discoveries of the most eminent German Philologists and Jurists. Koyal 
8vo, Sheep, $6 00. 

Smith's Antiquities, Abridged by the Authors. 12mo, 
Half Sheep, $1 50. 

Anthon's Classical Dictionary of the Geography, 

History, Biography, Mythology, and Fine Arts of the Greeks and Ro- 
mans, together with an Account of the Coins, Weights, and Measures of 
the Ancients, with Tabular Values of the same. Royal 8vo, Sheep, $6 00. 

Anthon's Smith's New Classical Dictionary of 

Greek and Roman Biography, Mythology, and Geography. Numerous 
Corrections and Additions. Royal 8vo, $5 00. 

Anthon's Latin-English and English-Latin Dic- 
tionary, For the Use of Schools. Small 4to, Sheep, $3 50. 

Anthon's Riddle and Arnold's English-Latin 

Lexicon. With a copious Dictionaiy of Proper Names from the beet 
Sources. Royal Svo, Sheep, $5 00. 

Anthon's Ancient and Mediaeval Geography. 

8vo, Sheep extra, $3 00, 

Barton's Grammar. With Questions, 16mo, Cloth, 
60 cents. 

Beecher's (Miss) Physiology and Calisthenics. 

Over 100 Engravings. 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents, 

Boyd's Eclectic Moral Philosophy. 12mo, Cloth, 

$125. 

Boyd's Elements of Rhetoric and Literary Crit- 
icism. 12mo, Half Roan, 75 cents. 

Butler's Analogy, by Emory and Crooks. 12mo, 

Cloth, $1 25. 



Books for Schools and Colleges. 



Butler's Analogy, by Hobart and West. 18mo, Cloth, 

T5 cents, 

Butler's Analogy, edited by Halifax. ISmo, Cloth, 
75 cents. 

Buttman's Greek Grammar. For High Schools and 

Universities. Translated by Edwaed Robinson, D.D,, LL.D. 8vo, 
Sheep, $2 50. 

Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful. 12mo, 

Cloth, $1 25. 

Calkins's Object Lessons. Illustrations. 12mo, 

Cloth, $1 50. 

Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric. 12mo, Cloth, 

$150. 

Clark's Elements of Algebra. 8vo, Sheep, $1 25. 
Collord's Latin Accidence and Primary Lesson 

Book. 12mo, $1 25. 

Combe's Principles of Physiology. "With Ques- 
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Crabb's English Synonyms. 8vo, Sheep extra, $2 50. 

Docharty's Arithmetic. 12mo, Sheep, $1 25. 

Docharty's Institutes of Algebra. 12mo, Sheep, 

$1 25. 

Docharty's Geometry. 12mo, Sheep extra, $1 25. 

Draper's Human Physiology, Statical and Dynam- 
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of the Lectures delivered in the Medical Department of the University. 
Illustrated by nearly 300 fine Wood-cuts from Photographs. 8vo, 650 
pages, Cloth, $5 00. 

Draper's Chemistry. For Schools and Colleges. With 
nearly 300 Illustrations. 12mo, Sheep extra, $1 25. 

Draper's Natural Philosophy. For Schools and 

Colleges. Nearly 400 Illustrations. l'2mo, Sheep extra, $1 25, 



Boohs for Schools and Colleges. 



Duff's Book-Keeping. 8vo, School Edition, Half 

Sheep, $1 25; Mercantile Edition, Clotli, $1 75. 

Foster's First Principles of Chemistry. Adapted 

especially for Classes. 12mo, Sheep extra, 75 cents. 

APPARATUS necessary to perform the experiments laid down 
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transportation^ for $40 00. 

Foster's Chart of the Organic Elements. Beau- 
tifully Colored, Mounted on Rollers, with Cloth Back, $5 00. 

Fowler's English Language in its Elements and 

Forms. With a History of its Origin and Development, and a full Gram- 
mar. For Use in Colleges and High Schools. New and Revised Edition. 
8vo, Cloth, $2 50. 

Fowler's English Grammar for Schools. Abridged 
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12mo, Sheep extra, $1 25. 

Fowler's Elementary English Grammar for Com- 
mon Schools. 16mo, Sheep, 75 cents. 

Gray's and Adams's Geology. Engravings. 12mo, 

Sheep extra, $1 25. 

Gray's Natural Philosophy. For Academies, High 

Schools, and Colleges. S60 Wood-cuts. 12mo, Sheep extra, $1 25. 

Greek Concordance of the New^ Testament. 8vo, 

Sheep, $5 00. 
Hackley's Algebra. College Edition. 8vo, Sheep 

extra, $1 50. A School Edition, Svo, Cloth, $1 25. 

Hackley's Geometry. Svo, Sheep extra, $1 25. 
Hale's History of the United States. 2 vols, ISmo, 

Cloth, $1 50. 

Hamilton's (Sir "William) Discussions on Philos- 
ophy and Literature, Education and University Reform. Svo, Cloth, 
.$2 00- 

Harrison's Latin Grammar. 12mo, Sheep, $1 25. 
Haswell's Mensuration. 12mo, Sheep, $1 00. 



£ooks for Schools and Colleges. 



Harper's Greek and Latin Texts. Carefully re- 
printed from the best Editions. Elegantly printed. ISmo, Flexible 
Cloth Binding, Sixty cents a volume. 



C^SAE. 

Sallust. 

VlRGILirs. 
HOEATIUS. 
CiCEEO DE SENECTCTE ANT» 

De Amicitia. 



luceetius. 
Xenophon's Anabasis. 

iESCHYLUS. 
EUKIPXDEB. 3 vols, 

Herodotus. 2 vols. 

TlIUCYDIDES. 2 vols. 



Harper's Ne-w Classical Library. Literal Trans- 
lation of the Greek and Latin Authors. Portraits. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 
each. The following volumes are now ready : 



C^SAK. 

ViKGn,. 

HOEACB. 

Sallust. 

Cioeeo's Orations. 
CioERO's Offices, &o. 

CiGEEO ON OEATOEY AND OE- 
ATOES. 

Tacitus. 2 vols. 
Terence. 



Juvenal. 
Xenophon. 
Homee's Iliad. 
Homee's Odysset. 
Thucydibes. 
Herodotus. 
Demosthenes. 2 vols. 
Euripides. 2 vols. 
Sophocles. 

^SCHYLUS. 



Harper's Ancient History. For the Use of Schools. 
By Jacob Abbott. With Maps, Wood-cuts, and Questions. Square 4to, 
Half Roan, $1 25. 

Harper's English History. For the Use of Schools. 
By Jacob Abbott. With Maps, Wood-cuts, and Questions. Square 4to, 
Half Roan, $1 25. 

Harper's American History. For the Use of Schools. 
By Jacob Abbott. With Maps, Wood-cuts, and Questions. Square 4to, 
Half Roan, $1 25. 

The above three, complete in one volume., Price $3 00. 

Henry's History of Philosophy. For Colleges and 

High Schools. 2 vols., 18mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

Herschel's Natural Philosophy. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00. 
Hooker's Child's Book of Nature. Intended to 

aid Mothers and Teachers in Training Children in the Observation of 
Nature. In Three Parts. Parti. Plants.— Part H. Animals.— Part HI. 
Air, Water, Heat, Light, &c. Illustrated. The Three Parts complete 
in one vol., small 4to, Cloth, $2 00; Separately, Cloth, 75 cents each. 

Hooker's Natural History. For the Use of Schools 

and Families. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

M 



8 Boohs for Schools and Colleges. 



Hooker's First Book in Chemistry. Illustrations. 

Square 4to, Cloth, «0 cents. 

Hooker's Natural Philosophy. Science for the 

School and Family. Part I. Natural Philosophy. Illustrated by near- 
ly 300 Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

Hooker's Chemistry. Science for the School and 

Family. Part II. Chemistry. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

Hooker's Mineralogy and Geology. Science for 

the School and Family. Part III. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

Knapp's French Grammar. A Practical Grammar 
of the French Language : containing a Grammar, Exercises, Reading 
Lessons, and a complete Pronouncing Vocabulary. By William I. 
Knapp, A.m., Professor of Modern Languages and Literature in Madison 
University, N. Y., and Author of "A French Reading-Book." 12mo, 
Half Leather, $1 75. 

Knapp's French Reading-Book. Chrestomathie 

Franf aise : Containing, I. Selections from the best French Writers, with 
Copious References to the Author's French Grammar. II. The Master- 
pieces of Moliere, Racine, Boileau, and Voltaire ; with Explanatory Notes, 
a Glossary of Idiomatic Phrases, and a Vocabulary. By William I. 
Knapp, A.M. 12mo, Half Leather, $1 75. 

Lee's Elements of Geology. Engravings. 18mo, 
Half Sheep, 75 cents. - 

Liddell and Scott's Greek - English Lexicon. 

From the Work of Feancis Passow. With Corrections and Additions, 
and the Insertion, in Alphabetical Order, of the Proper Names. By Hen- 
KY Drisleb, LL.D., Columbia College, N. Y. Royal 8vo, Sheep extra, 

$7 50. 

Loomis's Elements of Arithmetic : Designed for 

Children. 16mo, 166 pages, Half Sheep, 40 cents. 

Loomis's Treatise on Arithmetic, Theoretical and 

Practical. 12mo, 353 pages. Sheep extra, $1 00. 

Loomis's Elements of Algebra. For the Use of 

Beginners. 12mo, 281 pages, Sheep extra, $1 GO. 

Loomis's Treatise on Algebra. 8vo, 359 pages, 

Sheep extra, $1 25. 



Books for Schools and Colleges. 9 

Loomis's Trigonometry and Tables. 8vo, 360 

pages, Sheep extra, $2 00. 

The Trigonometry and Tables hound separately. The Trigonom- 
etry^ $150; Tables, $1 25. 

Loomis's Elements of Geometry and Conic Sec- 
tions. 8vo, 234 pages, Sheep extra, $1 25. 

Loomis's Elements of Analytical Geometry, and 

of the Differential and Integral Calculus. 8vo, 286 pages, Sheep extra, 

$2 00. 

Loomis's Elements of Natural Philosophy. For 

Academies and High Schools. 12mo, 352 pages, Sheep extra, $1 50. 

Loomis's Practical Astronomy. With a Collection 

of Astronomical Tables. 8vo, 497 pages, Sheep extra, $2 00. 

Loomis's Recent Progress of Astronomy, espe- 
cially in the United States. A thoroughly Revised Edition. Illustra- 
tions. 12mo, 396 pages. Cloth, $1 50. 

McClintock's First Book in Latin. 12mo, Sheep, 

$1 25. 

McClintock's Second Book in Latin. Forming a 

sufficient Latin Reader. With Imitation Exercises and a Vocabulary. 
12mo, Sheep, $1 25. 

McClintock's First Book in Greek. 12mo, Sheep, 

$1 25. 

McClintock's Second Book in Greek. Forming 

a sufficient Greek Reader. With Notes and a copious Vocabulary. 12mo, 
Sheep, $1 25. 

McGregor's Logic. 12mo, Cloth, |I 25. 
Markham's (Mrs.) History of France, from the 

Conquest of Gaul by Julius Ceasar to the Reign of Louis Philippe. With 
Conversations at the End of each Chapter. Map, Notes, and Questions, 
and a Supplement, bringing down the History to the Present Time. By 
Jacob Abbott. 12mo, Cloth, $1 75. 

Mill's Logic. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00. 

Morse's School Geography. A New System of Ge- 
ography, for the Use of Schools. Illustrated by more than 50 Cerograph- 
ic Maps, and numerous Engravings on Wood. 4to, Half Bound, 90 cents. 



10 JBooks for Schools and Colleges. 



Mills's Literature and Literary Men of Great 

Britain and Ireland. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $5 00. 

Noel and Chapsal's French Grammar. 12mo, 

Cloth, $1 25. 

Olmsted's Astronomy. Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, 

$1 50. 

Parker's Outlines of General History. 12mo, 

Sheep extra, $1,25. 

Parker's Aids to English Composition. For Stu- 
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College Exercises, and most of the higher Departments of English Com- 
position, both in Prose and Verse. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00 ; Sheep, $1 25. 

Parker's Geographical Questions. Adapted for the 

Use of any respectable Collection of Maps ; embracing, by way of Ques- 
tion and Answer, such Portions of the Elements of Geography as are nec- 
essary as an Introduction to the Study of the Maps. To which is added 
a concise Description of the Terrestrial Globe. 12mo, Cloth, 30 cents. 

Proudfit's Plautus's "Captives." With English 
Notes for the Use of Students. By Professor John Peoudfit, D.D. 
12mo, Cloth, 75 cents. 

Robinson's Greek Lexicon of the New Testa- 
ment. A New Edition, revised, and in great part rewritten. Royal 
8vo, Cloth, $6 00 ; Sheep extra, $6 50. 

Robinson's Buttman's Greek Grammar. (.S'ee Butt- 
man^s Greek Grammar.) 

Russell's Juvenile Speaker. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00. 

Smith's Mechanics. Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00 ; 
Sheep extra, $2 50. 

Smith's (Dr. W.) New Classical Dictionary. (See 
AnthorVs Smith''s Neio Classical Dictionary.) 

Smith's (Dr. Wm.) Principia Latina. Paj;t I. A 

First Latin Course, comprehending Grammar, Delectus, and Exercise 
Book, with Vocabularies. Carefully Revised and Improved by Heney 
Deislee, LL.D,, of Columbia College, N. Y. 12mo, Flexible Cloth, 75 
cents. 



Books for Schools and Colleges. 11 



Smith's (Dr. Wm.) Principia Latina. Part II. A 

First Latin Reading Book, containing Tables, Anecdotes, Mythology, Ge- 
ography, and Roman History ; with a short Introduction to Roman An- 
tiquities ; Notes and a Dictionary. Carefully Revised and Improved by 
Heney Drisler, LL.D., of Columbia College, N. Y. 12mo, Flexible 
Cloth. (7n Press.) 

Smith's (Dr. W.) Dictionary of Antiquities. {See 
Anthon's Dictionary of Greek and Roman An tquities.) 

Student's (the) Historical Text-Books: 

THE student's histories. 



The Student's History of 
France. A History of France 
from the Earliest Times to the 
Establishment of the Second Em- 
pire in 1852. Illustrated by En- 
gravings on Wood. Large 12mo, 
742 pages, Cloth, $2 00. 

The Student's Hume. A History 
of England from the Earliest 
Times to the Revolution in 1688. 
By David Hume. Abridged. In- 
corporating the Corrections and 
Researches of Recent Historians, 
and continued down to the Year 
1858. Illustrated by Engravings 
on Wood. Large 12mo, 806 pages, 
Cloth. 

The Student's Gibbon. The His- 
tory of the Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire. By Edward 
Gibbon. Abridged. Incorpora- 
ting the Researches of recent 
Commentators. By William 
Smith, LL.D. Illustrated by 
100 Engravings on Wood. 
Large 12mo, 706 pages, Cloth, 
$2 00. 

The Student's Histoey of 
GsEECE. A History of Greece 
from the Earliest Times to the 



Roman Conquest. With Supple- 
mentary Chapters on the History 
of Literature and Art. By Wil- 
liam Smith, LL.D. Revised, 
with an Appendix, by Prof. 
George W. Greene, A.M. Illus- 
trated by Engravings on Wood. 
Large 12mo, 724 pages, Cloth, 
$2 00. 

^^ A Smaller History 
OF Greece: The above Work 
abridged for Younger Students 
and Common Schools. Engrav- 
ings. 16mo, 272 pages. Cloth, $1. 

The Student's Histoey of Rome. 
A History of Rome from the Ear- 
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of the Empire. With Chapters 
on the History of Literature and 
Art. By Heney G. Liddell, 
D.D., Dean of Christ Church, 
Oxford. Illustrated by numer- 
ous Wood-cuts. Large 12mo, 778 
pages, Cloth, $2 00. 

iW A Smaller History of 
Rome, from the Earliest Times to 
the Fall of the Western Empire 
in the Year 476. Engravings. 
16mo, Cloth, uniform with the 
Smaller History of Greece. 



Salkeld's Roman and Grecian Antiquities. With 

Maps, &c. 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents. 

Salkeld's First Book in Spanish. 12mo, Sheep 

extra, $1 25. 

Schmucker's Psychology. 12mo, Cloth, $1 25. 



1 2 JBooks for Schools and Colleges. 



School (the; and the Schoolmaster. A Manual 

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Rt. Rev. Alonzo Pottee, D.D,, and George B. Emeeson, A.M. En- 
gravings. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

Strong's Harmony of the Gospels. For the Use 

of students and others. 12ino, Cloth, $1 50. 

Spencer's Greek Ne"w Testament. 12mo, Cloth, 

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Upham's Mental Philosophy. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, 

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Upham on the Will. 12mo, Cloth, %\ 50. 
Whateley's Logic. 18mo, Cloth, 75 cents. 
Whateley's Rhetoric. 18mo, Cloth, 75 cents. 

"Willson's Readers and Spellers. A Series of 

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WILLSON'S 
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OP 

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Willson's Third Reader, 12mo, 264 pages, 142 cuts. 

Willson's Fouth Reader, 12mo, 360 pages, 164 cuts. 

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2 Willso7i^s Series of Headers and Spellers. 



but little more than four years since the early numbers of Willson's 
Readers were first published, yet these new books have already attained 
a sale second to only two (at most) of the old series of Readers. They 
have already been officially adopted by many of our principal cities, by 
great numbers of Town and County Boards of Education, and by several 
entire Statep; while they are otherwise known and used throughout 
the whole country. 

In Preparation. 

An Intermediate Second Reader. 

An Intermediate Third Reader. 

These seem to be required, as Intermediate Readers^ especially in the 
Public Schools of many of our cities, where the grades of Reading Classes 
are more numerous than in most country schools. 

While these additions to the series — intermediate in gradation be- 
tween the present Second and Third, and Third and Fourth Readers — 
will keep prominently in view the general aims and objects of the regu- 
lar series, they will present an unusual number of pieces adapted to the 
greatest variety of useful rhetorical exercises. 

I. State Adoptions. 

In March, 1863, the State of Indiana officially adopted Willson'a 
Readers. The State Board of Education, consisting of the Secretary of 
State, Auditor, State Treasurer, Attorney-General, and the Superintend- 
ent of Public Instruction, say : 

" The books and charts of the School and Family Series, by Marcius 
Will son, and published by Harper & Brothers, are decided improve- 
ments in the line of Educational Agencies. They are new in pfan, and 
new in the application of Natural Principles to the art of instruction ; 
and they differ widely from all other Charts and Readers in use in our 
schools. But new though they are, they have been fairly and exten- 
sively tested in a large number of the best-conducted schools of the 
country with highly satisfactory results. The several books of the Se- 
ries of Readers are not only appropriately graded, and happily adapted 
to the progress of the pupil in the art of reading, but they introduce to 
him the Natural Sciences in so elementary and pleasing a way, that their 
principles, many of their details, and a tolerable knowledge of their ap- 
plication to the affairs of life, are acquired while learning to read. The 
manner in which the whole is presented is as interesting as the matter 
is instructive and profitable." 

In May, of the same year, the State of Kansas officially adopted 
them. The following is from the published Report of Hon. Isaac T. 
Goodnow, State Superintendent of Public Instruction : 



Willson^s Series of Readers and Spellers. 3 



" Willson's Readers have been substituted for M'Guffey's. This is a 
change eminently fit to be made. The series stands head and shoulders 
above all others. To examine these Readers is to be convinced. 

"While they possess all the excellences of other Readers, they contain, 
in the most attractive form, a synopsis of Literature and Science, illus- 
trated in Harper's best style with beautiful engravings, Avhich present 
to the eye, on the Object System, the subjects of the lessons. The Nat- 
ural Sciences, divested of technicalities, enlivened by incident and anec- 
dote, and adorned by poetic selections, are here presented in a new and 
attractive light." 

In a late Report Mr. Goodnow says, of the introduction of Willson'tj 
Readei"s, " Sever has a change met with a more hearty approval." 

In May, of the same year, the State of California officially adopted 
them. First, the State Teachers' Association recommended them to the 
State Board, by the following vote: For Willson's Reader's, 115 votes; 
for Sargent's, 13 ; for Parker & Watson's, 4. The State Board, of which 
the Governor of the State is President, and the State Superintendent is 
Secretary, then unanimously adopted them. 
The State Superintendent says, in his recently-published Report : 
*' No other books adopted are destined to icork so radical a change for 
the better, in methods of instruction, as Willsoji's Readers. They are, 
in my opinion, the most valuable books that can be placed in the hands 
of our school-children." ■ 

The California Teacher of July, 1864, says: "Willson's Readers and 
Speller have been adopted in all the Public Schools of San Francisco, su- 
supersediug Sargent's. Willson's Readers are now in use in all the 
schools of the State, with the exception of Sacramento and Stockton." 

In April, 1864, Willson's Readers were officially adopted for the Tee- 

EITOEY OF L'TaH. 



Among the larger cities and towns which have already officially adopt- 
ed them (several exclusively) for use in their Public Schools, are Neio 
York, Brooklyn, Rochester: Waterbury, Litchfield, Xeio Britain, Con- 
necticut : Deerfield, Groton, Edgartown, East Needham, Cambridge^, 
Massachusetts: Nei02)ort, Rhode Island: Philadelphia, Harrisburg : 
Baltimore, Hagerstown, Maryland : Wilmington : New Brunsivick, 
Plainfield, Hudson City, Pater son. New Jersey: Galesburg, Pekin, 
CarrolUon, Ottawa, Lacon, Illinois : Circleville, Salem, Lebanon, Ohio : 
Jnnpsville, Beloit, Wisconsin: St. Clair. Grand Rapids, Grand Haven, 
Battle Creek, Sheboygan Falls, Michigan: Lidianapolis, Lafayette, 



Willson''s Series of Headers and Spellers. 



Union City, Indiana : Council Bluffs, Iowa : St. Paul, Minnesota ; 
Memphis, Tennessee: Leavenworth., Kansas: San Francisco-, Califor- 
nia, &c., &c., &c. 



II. Notices from the Public Press, Reviews, &c. 

From many hundreds we select the following : 

In their wonderful variety, the large amount of practical instruction 
conveyed, and the useful knowledge embodied in them, these volumes 
surpass all others we have seen. — New York Observer. 

We earnestly recommend parents and teachers to adopt Willson' s Se- 
ries of Readers. — New York Independent. 

The Series is excellent in aim and admirable in execution. It de- 
serves to become a favorite in the school and in the family. — New York 
Evangelist. 

These volumes are the best works of the kind we have ever seen. — 
Willis's Home Journal. 

This is the most valuable series of school-books, in our opinion, that 
has yet been published Buffalo Express. 

The Harpers liave never produced any better books than this Series 
of School and Family Readers. — Philadelphia Press. 

As a series we prefer them to any we have yet seen. — New Hampshire 
Patriot. 

We have never examined a set of school books with so much satisfac- 
tion as this series of Mr. Willson — Lutheran Observer (Baltimore). 

The best works of the kind that have ever fallen under our notice. — 
Baltimore American. 

They evince the most thorough success of the author in the attain- 
ment of his object -Morning Pennsylvanian. 

The child who finds these attractive school-books dull will be a dunce 
to the end of time Worcester Daily /Spy. 

Here we have the most beautiful Series of Readers, we suppose, that 
the world ever saw. — Methodist Quarterly Reviciv. 

The plan is one that combines peculiar attractions for the young pupil 
with solid and valuable instruction. — New York Tribune. 

A series of school books of exceeding value. — Albany Evening Stand- 
ard. 

These Readers are unsurpassed in the whole range of elementary 

works of instruction in the English langunge Newark Daily Advertiser 

(New Jersey). 

This series of Readers is a realization of our ideal of school books. — 
Kennebec Journal (Maine). 

These Readers impress us as having unusual claims upon all who are 
engaged in the work of elementary instruction. — Christian Witness. 



WiUson'^s Series of Readers and Spellers. 5 



We think these Readers are a decided improvement upon any hitherto 
issued Central Christian Herald Cincinnati). 

They contain the two essential elements which such books should pos- 
sess, viz., that while they instruct they amuse, and they instruct all the 
more because they amuse — New England Partner. 

By far the most attractive and complete system of School Readers ever 
oflfered to the American public. — Western Christian Advocate (Cincin- 
nati). 

This series is the most complete and satisfactoiy of any which has ever 
met our notice. — Xew Haven Daily Journal. 

As books designed to teach children the art of reading, we believe them 
to be far in advance of any other Readers — Baltimore Christian Advo- 
cate. 

In the first volumes of the Series the selections are specially designed 
to promote naturalness of intonation ; and it is almost impossible for the 
child to read them in that dry, measured, artificial manner which is so 
common. — American Quarterly Church Review. 

The pictures in these books are really illustrations of the reading les- 
sons, and not mere pictures. — Bethlehem, Advocate (Pennsylvania). 

The best adapted to their purpose of all the school reading-books that 
we have ever seen Salem Register (Massachusetts). 

An admirable Series, aiming not only to instruct in the noble Art of 
Reading well, but at the same time imparting a great amount of useful 
knowledge. — American Theological Review. 

Although heartily opposed to the innovations and revolutions in 
school books, which entail a new set at the commencement of every quar- 
ter, we commend the introduction of this Series of Readers into every 
school in the land, and an auto-da-fe of all previous ones, with total dis- 
regard to their cost. — Xew York Times. 

We unhesitatingly pronounce Willson's Readers the best books of the 
kind ever issued. — Muscatine Journal (Iowa). 

We consider Willson's Readers to be eminently superior to any other 

Series of Readers with which we are acquainted Des Moines Register 

(Iowa). 

III. Notices from Educational Journals. 

An admirable series of Readers. We see nothing to stand in the way 
of a great success — Maine Teacher. 

These Readers combine more of the essential requisites of utility in 
this department of instruction, than has been attained by any other au- 
thor with whom we are acquainted. — Massachusetts Teacher. 

Willson's Fifth Reader is fully as satisfactory as the others. Its elo- 
cutionary matter is excellent in character and sufficient in amount, and 
there is no want of variety in the style of the selections. — Xew Hamp- 
shire Journal of Education. 



6 Willson's Series of Headers and Spellers. 



These books are got up with a view to their usefulness. They may 
well find a place at the fireside, as well as in the school-room. If teach- 
ers will examine them they will be satisfied of their great merits Rhode 

Island Schoolmaster. 

This is the first attempt to bring the elements of the sciences into a 
systematic series of reading lessons ; and we are free to confess that we 
are agreeably disappointed. The attempt has been a success. — ^'ew 
York Teacher. 

The plan and design of these books are admirable. — Pennsylvania 
School Journal. 

Other School Readers remain on the shelf undisturbed by our chiU 

dren, but these have been read with great interest by all of them The 

Educator (Pennsylvania). 

There is every thing to recommend these Readers. They have met 
with so cordial a reception from the public that their success is demon- 
strated beyond question Indiana School Journal. 

We have always abstained from commending any series of Readers as 
the best ; but we confess ourselves sorely tempted, by this series of Read- 
ers, to abandon that ground. — Illinois Teacher. 

Mr. Willson has wrought out his plan with eminent skill and judg- 
ment — Michigan Journal of Educatioii. 

Willson's Readers have an idea in them, which we have often won- 
dered has never been attempted before. The idea is most excellent, 
and, if successfully carried out according to the plan proposed, will ef- 
fect a revolution in this department of school literature. — Iowa School 
Journal. 

He who reads these books as they should be read, will not only have 
acquired the art of good reading^ but will have collected a large fund 
of useful knowledge. — Iowa Instructor. 

When our attention was first called to the plan of these Readers, our 
mind was full of skepticism; but a careful examination of the books 
destroyed all our unbelief. Even the Natural History portions are so 
enlivened with description, incident, anecdote, and poetry, that we can 
not conceive of any thing more charming in the way of reading lessons. 
— Missouri Educator. 



IV. Testimonials from Educators. 

I find a greater variety of interesting selections in these Readers than 
I have ever met with in any or all other series. — Prof. A. P. Stone, 
Principal of Plymouth High School, Massachusetts, and late President 
American Institute of Instruction. 

I shall earnestly recommend the Series as the best in the world. — Rev. 
Charles Ayeb, Principal High School, Brunsmck, Maine. 



Wlllson^s Series of Headers and Spellers. 7 

They are the best Readers extant. I hope the time is not far distant 
when they will be used in all our schools. — H. F. Howaed, Princijial 
Normal School, N. Bridgeton, Maine. 

I am prepared to approve the Readers in full, and to labor for their 

adoption here and elsewhere ^\V, J. Rolfe, Principal High School, 

Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

They combine, in a happy manner, all that is necessary in Element- 
ary Instruction in Reading, with systematic instruction in Natural Sci- 
ence. — Hon. David N. Camp, Superintendent Public Instruction of 
Comiecticut. 

These Readers will do more than any others to excite in the minds of 
children that interest in study and that love of nature which are so 
essential to the right development of character, — J. B. Chapin, State 
School Commissioner of Rhode Island. 

I think this Series of Readers leaves nothing to be desired, either in 
respect to manner, matter, mode of treatment, or mechanical execution. 
— Prof. \Vm. F. Phelps, late Principal Normal School, Neiv York., and 
noio Principal of State Normal School of Minnesota. 

I regard Willson's Readers as better than any others that I have ever 
seen Daniel Holbeooe, late Superintendent Public Schools of Roch- 
ester., Neio York. 

A beautiful and inviting series. Children will soon settle the ques- 
tion of their use for themselves, if the opportunity be offered them 

Hon. Heney C. Hickok, late Superintendent of Schools of the State of 
Pennsylvania. 

The Plan of Willson's Readers possesses characteristics of great value. 
— Hon. Ansox Smyth, late State School Commissioner of Ohio. 

As much as I like the mechanical execution of Willson's Readers, it is 
as nothing when compared to their Plan and development. How much 
more useful men and women our pupils will make when they are in- 
structed on the plan which the artist and author have so ably developed 
in these books ! The principle in the School and Family Charts is the 

same as in the Readers Daniel Hough, late Principal of First Ward 

School of Cincinnati. 

These are remarkable books of their kind. They raise an important 
educational problem, namely: Can skill in reading and knowledge in 
the physical sciences be successfully acquired at the same time? If 
practice shall answer this affirmatively, these books, in my judgment, 

stand without a rival Prof. G. W. Hoss, State Superintendent of Puh- 

lic Instruction of Indiana. 

The plan of Willson's Readers is a novel one, and has been executed 

with a master's hand Prof. J. V. N. Standish, Lombard University, 

Galesbury, Illinois. 

Preferring Willson's Readers above all others with which we are ac- 



8 Willsori's /Series of Headers and Spellers. 



quainted, we cordially recommend that they be introduced into the 

schools of our respective counties. 

Wm. M. Beooks, Swp. of Tremo7it Co.-^ 

and Prill, of Tabor Lit. Inst., 
J. R. Little, Sup. of Mills Co.., 
J. A. Woods, Sup. of Page Co., v r t 

E. S. Hughes, Sup. of Jefferson Co., ' 
Rev. D. V. Smock, Sup. of Keokuk Co., 
J. Root, Jr., Sup. of Iowa Co., 
E. F. Ripley, Sup. of Hardin Co., 



For hundreds of similar testimonials send for our Educational Pam- 
phlets, which will be sent free on application. 



A SERIES OF COLORED SCHOOL 
AND FAMILY CHARTS, 

BY MAKCIUS WILL80N AND N. A. CALKINS. 

An accompanying 

MANUAL OF INSTRUCTION, 

BY MAKOIUS WILLBON. 

These beautiful charts, twenty-two in number, each about 22 by 30 
inches, maybe had either in sheets or mounted on eleven pasteboard cards. 

Notices, Testimonials, &c. 

The most extensive and perfect series of School Charts published in 
this country. — Massachusetts Teacher. 

Send for these Charts and use them. If you do, our Avord for it, you 
will bless us for penning these lines. — Rhode Island Schoolmaster. 

We should be glad to see these Charts in every school-house in the 
land Connecticut School Journal. 

The most attractive and beautiful School Charts ever published. — 
Maine Teacher. 

We have seen nothing in the shape of School Charts so beautiful and 
valuable as these Ohio Educational Monthly. 



Willso?i's Series of' Readers and Spellers. 9 



A school-room with these twenty-two Charts suspended on its walls is 
converted from what is too often a prison of dreariness to a picture-gal- 
lery of childish delights Indiana School Journal. 

There has been nothing published in the educational line for years 
that, to our mind, is such a means of conveying knowledge as these 
Charts and the Manual that accompanies them. — Iowa Instructor. 

Willson's Manual is the truest American expression of the principles 
of Pestalozzi that has yet been made. Mr. Willson is legitimately car- 
rying out, in this Manual and the accompanying Charts, the basis of his 
admirable system of School Readers. — New York Teacher. 

Willson's Manual is admirably suited to the object for which it has 
been prepared. The Charts are the most complete and beautiful ever 
published. — W. H. Wells, Superinteyidt 7it of Public Schools, Chicago. 

I highly approve of tlie design and execution of the School and Family 
Charts, and the accompanying Manual. — S. S. Randall, Superintend- 
ent of Public Instruction, Xeio York city. 

I am delighted with the "School and Family Charts," and the accom- 
panying ''Manual." I design to make tlie Charts the basis of my talk 
on Object Lessons at the Educational Conventions which I am holding. — 
E. P. Weston, Superintendent of Schools of Maine. 

I am happy to express my hearty approval of the plan of the works 
and of its execution — David N. Camp, Superintendent of Public Schools 
of Connecticut, and Princi2ial of State Normal School. 

The "School and Family Charts" have been in use in the Normal 
School of New Jersey and its branches for several weeks. They are al- 
ready regarded by our primary teachers as a necessity. — W. F. Phelps, 
Princix)al of Neio Jersey State Normal School. 

In the preparation of these Charts and Manual you have done a great 
and good work for the cause of school and home education in America. — 
Prof. J. L. Teacy, Assistant Superinteiident of Public Schools of Mis- 
souri. 

I am myself so well pleased with the Charts and Manual that I shall 
use them constantly in my own family. — Edwakd Richards, Principal 
of Illinois State Normal School. 

In my opinion these Charts are the most valuable contribution that 
has ever been made to the cause of education in our country. — ]Mose8 
Ingalls, Agent of Iowa State Teachers' Association. 

I think Willson's Manual the best thing on Primary Instruction that 
has yet appeared in this country Samuel P. Bates, Deputy Superin- 
tendent of Common Schools of Pennsylvania. 

We could not well do without them. They should be in every school 

in the country J. V. Montgomeey, Principal of Pennsylvania State 

Model School. 

Every one is delighted with the School and Family Charts. No such 

charts have ever before been published in any country Geoege W. 

Minns, Pincipal of Normal School, Sa7i Franciseo, 



10 Willsoji^s Series of Headers mid S2:>ellers. 



The Charts are the loonder of the age in this department. Both edit- 
ors and publishers have executed their parts nobly W. E. Sheldon, 

Principal of Public Schools, West Newton, Massachtisetts. 

Their publication marks an important step in the progress of Object 
Teaching in this country. — Rev. B. G. Noetheop, State Agent of Mas- 
sachusetts Board of Education. 

These Charts surpass my highest expectations. — D. Feanklin Wells, 
Professor of Theory and Practice of Teaching, State University of 
Iowa. 

We are delighted with your School and Family Chartri. — John Swett, 
Superintendent of Public Schools of California. 



PRIMARY OBJECT LESSONS. 

Primary Object Lessons for a Graduated Course of Develop- 
ment. A manual for Teachers and Parents, with Les- 
sons for the Proper Training of the Faculties of Children. 
By N. A. Calkins. Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth. 

The fundamental idea of this work is that primary education should 
aim to develop the observing powers, rather than, as is the usual plan, 
to exei'cise the memory. For this purpose a series of interesting exei'- 
cises has been framed to develop the ideas of form, color, number, size, 
weight, sound, and place. "The work," says an eminent educator, 
"meets fully the demand that is now made for guides to teachers in 
properly directing the minds of children. There has been much written 
on the subject, and many attempts at systematizing, but we have not 
seen any thing so well adapted to suggest to teachers a practical course 
of training for our schools as the work before us." 

MANUAL OF OBJECT LESSONS. 
Manual of Object Lessons and Elementary Instruction. 
By N. A. Calkins, Author of " Primary Object Les- 
sons." Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth. (Nearly Heady.) 



GERMAN SERIES OP SCHOOL AND FAMILY READERS. 

THE SECOND BOOK OF NATURE. 

Translated from Willson's Readers by G. Bremen. Pages 
445. Illustrated by 318 Engravings. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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